Thanks all! Yes, I do (thankfully) nackup all my pictures and really special files to a hard drive on our network so nothing priceless is gone. I also do the exact things redHedd mentioned "Norton Internet Security, Spybot Search & Destroy, AdAware and make sure all are regularly updated."

But THIS was a nasty virus. As for reformatting - yes, I know some folks do it pretty regularly but if my geek hubby knows what he is talking about - regular reformatting just postpones more troubles. There is something he does calls "going back to zeroes" that is more than reformatting - it strips the old drive bare with no operating system on it - that's about all I know.

Interesting that some of you had the same virus! Quite an interesting thing to watch your hard drive disintegrate before your eyes as if taken over by an entity!!

I am currently using an older stripped one and got my good ole files back from the network - but think we will splurge and buy me a BRAND NEW drive. Now, if I can just keep it bug free

OH! We still use Win 98 and now 2000 but if you have 2000 or better - Microsoft has a free Spybot that is supposed to be even better than Spy-Bot! Hubby loaded it to the server last night and it found a handful of spyware-bots and ads on a freshly scrubbed drive. In fact, I think it has "Scrub" in the name.....