AVG Infected files

Kkuba on 07/04/2013 - 14:16

Hi Guys,

I hope someone can help, I have had a few issues with antivirus software.

Here goes the story (it's a bit long but I want to include as much info as I can)

My friend A has a laptop (she is not so computer literate) that is not so well maintainted. plugged in my 1TB portable to watch some movies. Went to my friend Y's house, with my HDD, he has AVG, it detected a virus. I did not see what he did but I assume he clicked "take recommended action". I unplugged it 5 mins later, I can't remember why.

Went to A's house, installed AVG to help clean up her computer. Let it scan, it didnt find anything that indicated anything particularly dangerous.

A calls me a few days later to tell me that her SD card with a few years of travelling, lost all the photos after (again I assume) she clicked "take recommended action" when AVG popped up.

I came over, wasn't sure what to do, plugged in my HDD, and found almost everything missing as well (almost all 800GB), only a couple of folders with not much in them.

Now the puzzling part is: both are still showing the same capacity occupied as before this happened. Also, the HDD, I usually use it plugged into my PS3 to watch videos off (99% of total content on that HDD), and they still ALL show up there.

Now people have suggested that I should use recovery software, I tried one on the SD card, but it did not find anything to recover.

Now I am wondering if this is a case of recovery (and just finding the best software for this situation) or the files are just somehow 'hidden' or 'quarantined'. As I don't want to start a recovery unnecessarily, and perhaps do more damage. shrugs

Can anyone help please, not too worried about the HDD, more about the SD card, but I guess if one can be fixed, likely the other too…

Thanks in advance

Computing

Comments

  • c64 on 07/04/2013 - 19:14

    avg might have a quarantined directory where it stores files

  • perkinma on 07/04/2013 - 21:51

    I haven't used AVG for a long while but I think mattgal will be right with the quarantine directory comment, particularly given that the PS3 still shows all the files (although you should try and play / listen / view a couple of them just to make sure the PS3 isn't just keeping some sort of cache of the index).

    Quick google search turned up this:

    http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100807074425AA…
    If you need to restore deleted files from AVG Virus Vault you can do it this way:

    • Open AVG user interface.
    • Choose "Virus Vault" option from the "History" menu.
    • Locate the file that was incorrectly removed and select it (one click).
    • Click on the "Restore" button.

    Although it looks like the 'restore' must happen from on the computer that instigated the 'quarantine' so you might be up for a trip back to friend Y's house.

    Personally I would exhaust the AVG quarantine / restore options before trying the recovery software, I had a digital camera card go bad and while I did get everything back in the end (the photo's were critically important) I spent some 20+ hours sorting through all the recovery software (most of which are junk or scams or both) before I got it all to work. Could be a lot of hard work down that path.

  • Mikinoz on 07/04/2013 - 21:57

    Have you tried show hidden files? otherwise recuva is a good free recovery software for deleted files

  • Kkuba on 08/04/2013 - 08:37

    Thanks heaps for the help guys, mattgal/perkinma, I will try this, will visit Y soon, and see if I can recover anything from quarantine. Only thing is, that I've hear that the free version of AVG (I'm guessing the one my friend has) does not have the quarantine feature enable. Can anyone else confirm this?

    To answer your questions, the PS3 seems to play the files that otherwise appear to have been deleted, have only tried a haldfull of them, but the ones I have tried are the ones missing in Windows.

    Also, I have tried to "show hidden files" but to no avail.

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