It only took about a month!! to get my laptop restored ... LOL.

Had an HDD crash, it basically fried itself and all my stuff went POOF!! I was lucky on two counts though, lappy was still under warranty and I did a full backup on an external disk just a week bfr.

Anyone who has delt with Toshiba support will know that getting timely, competent service is a hit and miss effort at best (shoulda stuck with IBM). Took them more than 3 weeks to pick up, repair and return my lappy ... snail speed IMO. They also screwed up by returning an icorrect DVD unit (ROM vs RW) but that's another issue now, I lost count of the calls I had to make so far ... just inches away from posting on ToshibaSucks ws.

Aside from that, I used an imaging prog by Acronis which worked really well in restoring my lappy. Won't put a link here but googling for True Image will suffice, must say it's easy to use compared to other backup progs I tried previously, and got everything back to it's former glory ... all data files, programs, system state, etc.

So far so good, till the next crash that is ... so to save on excessive headache remedies I must recommend: backup, backup , backup and backup some more!!



Cheers

Go with DELL

Most reliable tech support and after-sales service IMHO

I went through several notebooks in my work.... IBM, Toshiba, Compaq, Computron, Samsung, HP, Sony, etc.....and lastly DELL.

With the latter, I never had a single problem with service but it's a different story with the rest of them. Worst service was with Compaq and now HP.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Computer users already anxious about viruses and identity theft have new reason to worry: Hackers have found a way to lock up electronic documents and then demand $200 US to get them back.


Security researchers at San Diego-based Websense Inc. uncovered the unusual extortion plot when a corporate customer they would not identify fell victim to the infection, which encrypted files that included documents, photographs and spreadsheets.

A ransom note left behind included an e-mail address, and the attacker later demanded $200 for the digital keys to unlock the files.

"This is equivalent to someone coming into your home, putting your valuables in a safe and not telling you the combination," said Oliver Friedrichs, a security manager for Symantec Corp.

The FBI said the scheme, which appears isolated, was unlike other Internet extortion crimes. Leading security and antivirus firms this week were updating protective software for companies and consumers to guard against this type of attack, which experts dubbed "ransom-ware."

"This seems fully malicious," said Joe Stewart, a researcher at Chicago-based Lurhq Corp. who studied the attack software. Stewart managed to unlock the infected computer files without paying the extortion, but he worries that improved versions might be more difficult to overcome. Internet attacks commonly become more effective as they evolve over time as hackers learn to avoid the mistakes of earlier infections.

"You would have to pay the guy, or law enforcement would have to get his key to unencrypt the files," Stewart said.

The latest danger adds to the risks facing beleaguered Internet users, who must increasingly deal with categories of threats that include spyware, viruses, worms, phishing e-mail fraud and denial of service attacks.

FBI spokesman Paul Bresson said more familiar Internet extortion schemes involve hackers demanding tens of thousands of dollars and threatening to attack commercial websites, interfering with sales or stealing customer data.

Experts said there were no widespread reports the new threat was spreading, and the website was already shut down where the infection originally spread. They also said the hacker's demand for payment might be his weakness, since bank transactions can be traced easily.

"The problem is getting away with it - you've got to send the money somewhere," Stewart said. "If it involves some sort of monetary transaction, it's far easier to trace than an e-mail account."

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Like Brad said :

Always back up files just in case...

Gotta use an external drive of some sort ... having a backup on the hijacked PC won't do any good, because the backup itself is being held for ransom too.

One other note on the ransom payment, the culprits are more likely after an account number, be it Visa, bank or others, that way they can clean out lot more cash than the $200. E-mailing such is asking for more trouble cuz not only is it harder to trace the perpetrators but it could very well lead to identity theft ...

I meant backup on CD's NOT ON HD.....

I know what you meant Combo ... I posted that for the benefit of others who may not be backup savvy yet, heck I'm still green when it comes to that although I learned the hard way.

Cheers