Biblical Greek...

You didn't say if it was Windows or what. If it is, try WinKey + Ctrl + Shift + B, it restarts the graphics driver. I do have the same problem on Lenovos, but they're running the free version of Hyper-V server (without any GUI), they're a bit "special". Any way, the key combination is good to wake up the PC's screen, which doesn't wake in any other way. On my main laptop, sometimes one of my 3 screens starts to act funny, graphics start distorting, and this key combination also solves it. I attribute this to a flaky graphics card, getting old and near end of life. I could be wrong, of course.

Lovely thread! I once had an office of around 25 people running on a Linux mail and file server, which ran inside a Hyper-V VM. This is for a non-profit and I am working for free... I was really proud of the architecture, a replicated server (for fault tolerance) and 24 hourly automatic checkpoints, plus external backups. The tech guy who was in charge of keeping this running, a friend of mine, also joining in pro bono, learned to create a checkpoint (aka snapshot) of the VM before running OS updates, just in case they needed to be reverted. Once he was hesitant about some problem and left the checkpoint there. Months go by. The checkpoint keeps growing on the disk, but that's not going to be our problem. Now a person in the office is having trouble running some Webmin commands and the tech guy teaches her how to do it directly from Linux. So now we have a user playing with an admin command-line, but that's not going to be our problem. So she wants to run those commands from the Hyper-V server for convenience, and there's no Putty there. But there's this nice Hyper-V console which even has some nice icons on the toolbar. Like that useful "back" button that she pressed to get back to a previous screen or something she regretted doing. Only it's not a "back" button, despite having an arrow pointing to the left. It's "Revert" - a really efficient time machine taking you back months to the point of that forgotten checkpoint! Replica server does what it is designed to do - replicates all those changes throwing the data away. That's the reason why I always tell people that replicas aren't backups... Nobody called me in the initial 24h. Hour by hour, the valued data is replaced with the old stuff. Then I am called, and learn that backups had been long neglected. Over 20 people lose many months' worth of work... on an architecture that has more layers of prevention than most people even care to do (at least locally, I know a professionally-run cloud service would be different). She think it was her fault, but my friend knows it was his. In reality it was probably mine, in some dark twisted way...

I believe round numbers are milestones to be celebrated, so a party is in order when we reach the 65,536 th article.

Let me try a (speculative) answer along different lines: 1. If it's a QuickFormat, then virus data can still exist in sectors that are marked as clean of files. Of course, this virus is not active. I am just pointing out that a virus could use this to store its payload or stolen data for later use, if it was able to reactivate itself somehow. 2. Another vector would be a false format. If you format a disk (not the OS boot disk) from a computer that has malware, it could run a fake format that leaves things apparently blank, but in reality the disk is booby-trapped for the virus to reactivate itself. It would be quite tricky to pull this off, survive an OS reinstallation etc.

I'm surprised nobody mentioned Resilio Sync yet. This was formerly called BitTorrent Sync. It's basically Dropbox without the cloud server. Keeps your local devices synced between themselves, but does not keep a cloud copy. So, I use two different PC's which are always on (but it can be used with PC's that you turn on only occasionally, as long as that delay in copying your data is ok with you). I keep the two PC's on different locations, but you can do it at home if you prefer. Both have a 1TB disk dedicated to this task, and Resilio keeps them synced. So that's 1TB of replicated storage for less than $100, one-time payment. Be careful that replication is not exactly the same as backup. You are protected against hard-drive failure, but not against you deleting your files accidentally (it replicates the screw up...). I keep two copies of my directories, one of them static and updated about monthly, just in case I screw up the other.

1. Most of the times I am called to solve a virus infection, I find that the computer DID have an anti-virus program installed; useless stuff. 2. Most of the times I am called to solve a "my computer is slow" / "crashes" / "has problems" problem, I find it's a crapware(not malware)-caused problem, with the anti-virus as the top offender, or some update system, causing complains. 3. most of the times I have to reinstall an OS it has something to do with a crapped up AV uninstall. So - 1. The anti-virus IS the virus. I stopped using it on personal computers (I admit corporate environments are a different matter). 2. I use Windows Update to patch regularly. 3. I turn off Autoplay for all drives (scan your registry for NoDriveTypeAutorun and change all values to 0). 4. I don't click stupid links, or play with dangerous stuff (illegal downloads, porn), I don't execute stuff that looks suspicious. 5. I use USBDLM (a simple USB utility) to run my own batch file when a pen drive is inserted. If it finds an Autorun.inf there, it shows me the contents and asks if I want to delete it. 6. I clean all viruses on other people's computers manually to learn their tricks. 7. I regularly look at SysInternals Process Explorer so I am familiar with the stuff running in my PC. On my current PC which is now 6 years old and has never had a virus, has never been reinstalled, and runs fast even though it is Windows Vista (faster than most newer PC's which are ill-configured or have anti-virus programs installed). This is not risk-free, and it is not for everybody, but I have been evangelizing this approach and have had good results even with some non-technical users.

ChrisElston wrote:

Fortunately I was in Barbados at the time on honeymoon.

Honeymooning in Barbados does sound slightly preferable to cleaning up after a major virus infection at the office.