Witty Worm

March 22, 2004 1:30 PM

Bugger. I got bit by the Witty worm. It destroyed my boot sector and has ripped shreds through other data. I was able to use the recover CD from Alienware to get the system booted, but it seems to have installed a second version of windows. Because so much is toasted, I plan to fdisk and start over, but I'm trying to get as much data off the system as I can beforehand. But, I can't get my CD burner to work, even after reinstalling the Roxio software that came with the system, and updating all the drivers. [more inside]

So, does anyone know of a freeware CD burning software that I can try that doesn't require rebooting the machine to install? Alternately, does anyone know of a good data repository site where I could just upload a few hundred megs of stuff? Fortunately, I back up fairly regularly, but I still have about a months worth of docs, client sites and 3d models I don't have backed up.

posted by dejah420 to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

knoppix may be worth looking at. I don't know much about it, other than it'll boot a desktop version of linux into memory. It will probably also include tools for CD Burning, Disk copying, etc. Your PC needs to be able to boot from a CD for this to work.

Otherwise, you could boot your system into DOS, copy all affected folders into a backup folder, then do a fresh install of windows. I wouldn't do this for fear of the Windows Install deleting backed up files, but it's probably safe.

The other alternative I can think of is to buy and fit a new hard Disk. When you've got your system set up, fit the old hard drive as a secondary hard drive, and copy all the files you need onto the new drive.

re: Data repositry sites. I hear that 1&1 are giving away free webspace, so you could use them. Also connected have a trial period of about 30 days.

re: free disk burners... Nero has an evaluation edition you could try.

Good Luck.
posted by seanyboy at 1:46 PM on March 22, 2004

Burnatonce is a great free CD burning program. It's just a nice minimalist GUI for a few open-source tools, easy to use. There are others, of course, but for the most part they're not actual freeware (evaluation) and most of them probably require reboot.
posted by abcde at 2:11 PM on March 22, 2004

Did you reboot after re-installing the Roxio drivers and whatnot? I think you have to reboot to get them to work. And since the CD burneing software works at the system level you'll need to reboot any of them to get them to work.

Make sure you have a clean copy of the emergency boot disk, cross your fingers and reboot.

Or you can get an internet host real quick. 1and1 internet isn't free anymore, but its home package includes 500MB of space for $4.99/mth; they have a gig avail for $9.99/mth. If anything you can cancel after you've moved your files up to it and back.

I signed up for it when it was still free and have use it mainly for moving files around to myself and haven't had a problem.

Buen suerte.
posted by birdherder at 2:16 PM on March 22, 2004

Response by poster: Yeah, I'm kicking myself for not having an Knoppix cd.

Can't boot into DOS on C:\. Weirdest damn thing. I'm assuming it's one of the hosed segments. If I boot from a floppy, I can't see any of the other drives at all, just the floppy drive. Rebooting from the recovery CD installs windows again and then I can get to the data...but C:\ still isn't bootable for some reason. (Somehow, I'm currently up to 3 installed versions of windows...it's the damndest thing.) Which is why I'm trying to avoid rebooting again.

burnatonce looks great, thanks!

I completely forgot about 1&1. I signed up with them way back when they were doing the free promo and never did anything with it...oh, that so rocks, thanks much for the reminder...you're my new best friend. ;)

Adding another drive is another great idea if all else fails. I've got another system that I just use to test stuff...I can pull that drive. I think I've just been so freaked out that I didn't even think of anything that logical...or of 1&1. Thanks for being the voices of reason. ;)
posted by dejah420 at 3:46 PM on March 22, 2004

i second the formatting and OS install on an additional hard drive to gain access to your infected one. it will save the heartache of loosing everything on that drive. i've done it and it works wonderfully.
posted by nyoki at 4:16 PM on March 22, 2004

If it's a desktop, you could put your drive on another pc as the 2nd drive. That would make it easier to extract data. Knoppix is handy for recovery if you can find anyone to burn you a cd.
posted by theora55 at 5:30 PM on March 22, 2004