Computer Woes

So, upon my arrival from Guinea/Mali I immediately purchased a new laptop with plans to take it along with me on all my future travels. I got a Toshiba Netbook (one of those adorable tiny computers that weigh next to nothing and have a huge battery life while costing only around $300). It was love at first sight, and I immediately began to prepare this mini-pc for the voyage I planned for it.

I installed ipod sharing software so I could share music more easily with friends in Liberia, I installed video converting software so I could shrink video files to put on my ipod, I sought out and downloaded pdfs of documents that would come in handy for me in Liberia (World Map Project, Lonely Planet Guide to Liberia, etc). I (legally, of course) obtained massive quantities of video files from different TV shows I enjoy so I could have something to watch on my laptop/ipod etc. I also put all my Guinea pictures onto this computer before clearing them from my SD cards. Needless to say, this sucker was ready to be there for me through thick and thin in Liberia.

Then, out of nowhere, during a routine overnight download, I got a virus. Not just any virus, no sir, the worst one I - or any of my computer savvy friends have ever encountered. Somehow it managed to install itself (I take the blame for downloading it, but I NEVER got a chance to click on the file and install anything), disable my current antivirus, register itself onto my startup applications, hide itself, and freeze my computer before I even noticed it was there. In short what it does is freeze my computer immediately upon booting so that at best I have a 2-3 minute window to do anything before I need to hit the power button, reboot, and try again. Booting the computer in Safe mode allows me to work with it a bit more (thank god), but the limitations of safe mode are such that killbox, spybot, and antivirus programs are unable to do anything to find the virus.

I discovered the virus on Monday morning, spent all day working on it myself to no avail. Brought it up to Tucson and had a friend of a friend who is quite a bit more tech-able than I am work on it off and on for 2 days before grudgingly acknowledging defeat. Now I am working on (slowly) backing up all my files that I got for Liberia, and have generally collected over the years (~100 GB of stuff) onto a friend's hard drive. In a few hours I will completely wipe the hard drive, reinstall my operating system, and then transfer all my files back onto my computer while re-downloading and installing all the software I need/want to take to Liberia.

I'm down to 44 hours before my flight takes off for Liberia, and this is what I'm spending my time on....lame.

Oh yeah, and I haven't really finished packing yet either....that's gonna have to be tonight. I'll post my packing list when it's finished.