My computer was hacked...

[Jeff_in_Atl]

My computer crashed Friday. When I got home the screen was black and had a message on it "NTLDR missing or corrupted". All 3 of my hard drives were missing the FAT table. All 3 said they needed formatting and showed nothing on them. Well I bought a piece of software from http://www.stompsoft.com/ called "recover lost data" that just amazing. So I ran it on my C drive and it showed everything there. So I thought it was a minor problem and that I would run scandisk on it and it would fix it. So I ran it and when it got through 2 hours later there was nothing on it. That software could no longer find anything on it. It was gone. OK my bad for not backing it up but I had reloaded it about 3 months earlier and just hadn't gotten around to it. So I plug in my D drive which is a 400 gig that had most of my data on it. Same thing. Windows showed nothing on it and that it wasn't even formatted. So I ran the recovery program and everything shows. So I started recovering my data and found that all of my MP3 files that I legally copied from CD I bought were gone. Everything else was there except one movie I ripped and hadn't encoded to MP3 yet. So I plugged in my E drive and same thing. No fat table so Windows showed nothing on it. I didn't have anything on it so I didn't even look at the recovery program.

I thought all weekend that it looked like a hack job. We had a power failure Friday which could have caused it. I could see it screwing up 1 drive but all 3 in the exact same way and to only delete my MP3 files? It has to be a malicious source. I have a router with a NAT firewall and I run the Windows firewall so the hack had to go through both if it came from the outside. So I believe it was an inside job and I think I know which CD did it too.

I think this is what happened. http://business.timesonline.co.uk/ar...963800,00.html

I think this is what did it. My daughter asked me to rip the songs for her so she could put it on her MP3 player.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...=glance&n=5174

So everybody who rips CDs be careful. What really sucks is it is legal to rip you own CD. They are just assuming you are doing it illegally and for them to carry out their own punishment with out a trial is un-American. I wish who ever wrote this program would break into my house while I'm there.

[Steel2686]

I know Sony got in trouble for putting malicious code in their CD's. They assumed the same thing. I don't know what other music companies have attempted this, but if you have Sony produced CD's, don't even play them on your computer. I'll look for the Sony story.

EDIT: Nevermind. I just read your article about Sony/BGM. That's the story I was referring to.

[Jeff_in_Atl]

I will never buy anything made by Sony again.

[Steel2686]

I will never buy anything made by Sony again.

Agreed.

Jeff - Is there an easy fix for these problems just in case?

[bru333]

Sorry about your problems, But, thanks for the warning. Our kids all have Mp3 players so this is really good to know.

[TraceZ]

If record comapnies would just wake up.

Offer us fast high quality online downloads for $.25 a song. They would clean house. People would virtually stop downloading illegally.

Now those who listen legally have to deal with this spyware crap too? Give me a break.

It's easier to listen illegally. the music is free, and you dont have to worry about CDs with spyware on them infecting your PC.

They offer downloads at $1.00/song now. What a joke. So to get a 12 song album, you pay $12.00. For that price you could buy the actual CD. They are ripping us off. They dont have to produce the discs, the lables, the inserts, the jewel cases, the packaging, storage or delivery but they still want the same money they would get if they did have to go through all that expense.

There is no reason to buy a CD in a record store. It is a hastle to drive there and often times they dont have the exact song you want. The quality of the music is not really any better either. The record companies need to give us a reason to go to the store. How about CDs that can play 5.1 channel music in any normal DVD player? Now that would be a reason to go spend money in a store.

The record companies dont have a clue. The are making knee-jerk reactions to technology instead of embracing it and making it work for them.

How about an online music subscription service that costs $5.00/month and emails you the top 20 songs every month? Imagine how many people would be interested in something like that! Or, $10.00 for the top 40.

I could keep comeing up with winning ideas all day. They should hire me and pay me a billion dollars a year to make it all work.

[Jeff_in_Atl]

Here is so more information about rootkits http://www.sysinternals.com/Blog/

[Jeff_in_Atl]

Here is a list of SONY/BMG CDs that are recalled http://www.upsrow.com/sonybmg/

[Steel2686]

If record comapnies would just wake up.

Offer us fast high quality online downloads for $.25 a song. They would clean house. People would virtually stop downloading illegally.

Now those who listen legally have to deal with this spyware crap too? Give me a break.

It's easier to listen illegally. the music is free, and you dont have to worry about CDs with spyware on them infecting your PC.

They offer downloads at $1.00/song now. What a joke. So to get a 12 song album, you pay $12.00. For that price you could buy the actual CD. They are ripping us off. They dont have to produce the discs, the lables, the inserts, the jewel cases, the packaging, storage or delivery but they still want the same money they would get if they did have to go through all that expense.

There is no reason to buy a CD in a record store. It is a hastle to drive there and often times they dont have the exact song you want. The quality of the music is not really any better either. The record companies need to give us a reason to go to the store. How about CDs that can play 5.1 channel music in any normal DVD player? Now that would be a reason to go spend money in a store.

The record companies dont have a clue. The are making knee-jerk reactions to technology instead of embracing it and making it work for them.

How about an online music subscription service that costs $5.00/month and emails you the top 20 songs every month? Imagine how many people would be interested in something like that! Or, $10.00 for the top 40.

I could keep comeing up with winning ideas all day. They should hire me and pay me a billion dollars a year to make it all work.

As a member of iTunes, I have to agree with you, Tracy. Paying .99 a song is ridiculous. I have loaded just about all my CD's into my iPod, but have yet to purchase a song. I did get a $15 iTunes gift card for Christmas, however. I used that on an album of 10 songs ($9.99), and 5 singles (.99 each). Had I not received that gift card for Christmas, I wouldn't have even gone to the iTunes music store.

There are sites out there (Napster, Yahoo Music) that allow you to download unlimited songs to your computer for something like $5.99 a month. Where they get you, however, is when you go to load them into an MP3 player, or burn them to a CD. Then it's .79 a song to do so. No bargain unless you only listen to music on your computer. I'm sure there is some "questionable" software available to rectify that problem.

[Dave M]

record companies only make a fraction of that .99 on each song. I believe I've read about .50 goes to the record companies. The rest goes to the download company, in this case iTunes. There are places out there that offer monthly subscription services and others that offer single less than .99, but they won't work on an iPod. And that's Apple's fault, not the record companies.

[TraceZ]

record companies only make a fraction of that .99 on each song. I believe I've read about .50 goes to the record companies. The rest goes to the download company, in this case iTunes. There are places out there that offer monthly subscription services and others that offer single less than .99, but they won't work on an iPod. And that's Apple's fault, not the record companies.

The record companies should be offering the downloads directly off thier own servers. Why this middleman crap adding to the expense? I'd like to see the song go for $.25 directly off a record comapny run server, and then the artist should get at least half that.

Here is another question for you...

Recording music off the radio is legal.
Recording digital music off XM Radio is legal then, right?
Ripping that very same recorded music to .MP3 is Legal then, right?

Nope. it's not. I just dont understand how having the exact same thing, in a different format is illegal. Say I burn it to an audio CD, that is legal, but not the .MP3 rips?? Come on!

So, I can record music off the radio to a CD and that is legal. What is the difference? Isn't that "fair use" as long as you record it for yourself and do not try to make a profit from it?

I can also record movies off Directv and that is legal. What is the difference?
If the authorities were to discover a few thousand .MP3 files on your PC, how would they prove you didnt rip them yourself from recordings you made from your XM Radio subscription?

This whole thing was out of hand a long time ago. The record companies have really screwed it all up. I say give us what we want. Fast, high quality downloads at a fair price. I should not have to pay more than $5 for an entire album download of .mp3 files. It would cost the record comapnies very little comparatively to give us this, their margin of profit would be very high.

[Nightrage]

Oh great. I download stuff illegally all the time, but with intentions to buy the actual CD later on. I really hope I don't get harassed for it. I download it, listen to it and buy it if I like it. I guess I can understand where they're coming from with the anti-piracy stuff, but they go overboard.

It's also easier for me to download stuff from the internet that I already own. The last time I counted, I had 80 something CD's. This was 2 years ago. It's much easier to download all of the songs I like from all of the CD's I own. This way, I can get dozens of songs at the same time. To find the CD I wanted, then rip them from the CD to my computer, then to my MP3 player would take forever.

Then again, I don't think the music I listen to is too popular. I can't imagine getting in trouble for downloading Ensiferum, Naglfar or Amon Amarth.

[fastTa]

Wow, I hadn't heard about this mess with Sony! Makes me think twice about buying from Sony again as well.

[Joe K. 99 Zeee!!]

I unsubsribed from their music service over this. At first they tried to all but deny the problems. When they finally released a fix for the spyware, it didn't work and caused more problems. How could they not see that this only drives people to download more free music? If you pay you're punished.