Repairing damaged Windows systems
Repairing damaged Windows systems
I accessed a file that produced an image in my downloads folder with red text demanding payment in BTC for damaged files. It showed up on the background and even when the admin prompt appeared, it remained visible. My computer powered off after just two minutes. I made a backup of my C drive and tested it on a less powerful laptop, which worked fine. When I tried to view my 4TB drive—containing all my downloads, photos, videos, and other files—it displayed as a 16TB drive. I repeated the process on another laptop, booted Windows, and attempted to copy the drive, but it showed as a 2TB drive. I also tried to restore from an external 4TB drive, which displayed as a 2TB drive. During the repair attempts, I ended up creating a new copy of my C drive SSD on a different HDD to prevent further issues. Despite these efforts, I’m still unable to get Windows to boot properly. Tomorrow I plan to try restarting the laptop again. I’m hoping to fix this so I have a working computer for two weeks while I plan a full rebuild and reformat. As long as I have a functional machine until then, I’m okay.
Ransomware appears to have locked your files. Avoid restarting the machine, as this could worsen the situation. If you shut down the computer promptly, there might still be chances to recover data by connecting it to another operating system—ideally a Linux live environment—and transferring the files elsewhere. Encrypted files are unlikely to be recovered unless you know the specific decryption method used. To determine the exact threat, you’d need to identify the type of malware involved.