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Nasty computer virus attacked my fonts!

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1Nasty computer virus attacked my fonts! Empty Nasty computer virus attacked my fonts! Mon Aug 07, 2017 9:27 am

kruhjoe

kruhjoe
Admin
Admin

I've been struggling hard for the past three days to try to get rid of a virus that took control over my computer without losing much data.

The infected file seemed to be msjhbd.ttc, located in the Windows\Fonts folder. thumbs down

All texts and panels looked funny on my desktop, and everything worked terribly slowly.   i'm angry

First I tried Avast boot-time scan. It could identify the erroneous file (showing as 'Data error') but it just couldn't delete it. i don't know

As a second attempt, I tried to locate and remove the file manually. But as soon as I reached its folder, everything just went frozen. Only hard reboot could restart my computer. Trying to remove it from the Registry also had the same (no) result. forehead

Startup repair and system restore options had also failed.  weeping

What I could still have done is to remove my hard disk, connect it to another computer via a USB-to-SATA cable, and erase the infected files. But I just couldn't have bothered taking apart my laptop; so the final solution I chose was to reinstall Windows 10 from scratch. tired

Good that I had backups of most of my personal files and settings, so it didn't take much time to recover my computer.
(Only 3 days!) laugh out loud

Well, this is how I spent my weekend. How about you?

Have you experienced anything similar to this?

http://thailandteaching.info

gungchang

gungchang
Senior member
Senior member

kruhjoe wrote:Have you experienced anything similar to this?
Abso-fucking-lutely.  There's a reason I use Linux.

Conficker was one major annoyance.  Winsomethingorother, effectively ransomware, was another.

Avast boot scan got one.  I had to download a free tool from Norton to get the other.

And, yes, I've reinstalled the necessary evil, Windows, more than once.

First, I want to be clear that I am not pitching Linux in this post.

I am observing that Windows recovery disks are sometimes written in Linux.

Further, should lightning strike twice, I suspect that had you

1)  booted your computer with Ubuntu or Linux Mint or even GParted,

2)  you might have been able to delete the file msjhbd.ttc without triggering a frozen computer.

If you choose to make a Linux lifeboat recovery drive, remember to use Rufus to create the bootable USB flash drive.  The drive will be much more likely to boot on a UEFI drive.

https://kickass.cd/search.php?q=windows+recovery+disk

I can't vouch for any of the programs in the above link. I can vouch for a side-by-side installation.

Good luck.

kruhjoe

kruhjoe
Admin
Admin

gungchang wrote:
kruhjoe wrote:Have you experienced anything similar to this?
Abso-fucking-lutely.  There's a reason I use Linux.

Conficker was one major annoyance.  Winsomethingorother, effectively ransomware, was another.

Avast boot scan got one.  I had to download a free tool from Norton to get the other.

And, yes, I've reinstalled the necessary evil, Windows, more than once.

First, I want to be clear that I am not pitching Linux in this post.

I am observing that Windows recovery disks are sometimes written in Linux.

Further, should lightning strike twice, I suspect that had you

1)  booted your computer with Ubuntu or Linux Mint or even GParted,

2)  you might have been able to delete the file msjhbd.ttc without triggering a frozen computer.

If you choose to make a Linux lifeboat recovery drive, remember to use Rufus to create the bootable USB flash drive.  The drive will be much more likely to boot on a UEFI drive.

https://kickass.cd/search.php?q=windows+recovery+disk

I can't vouch for any of the programs in the above link. I can vouch for a side-by-side installation.

Good luck.

Thank you for you advice, Gungchang.

I've ever toyed with the idea, but now I might actually try it as well.
I'll install Linux as a secondary operating system on my computer, and keep it as a backup option in case I need to fix things (e.g. deleting infected files) in my Windows system folders.
wai thank you very much

http://thailandteaching.info

gungchang

gungchang
Senior member
Senior member

You're welcome.

Don't forget to back up before trying anything.

Don't hesitate to ask for help. I'm at your disposal and I'm sure that Wang could help.

You probably won't care for the default GRUB menu. Holler. It can be customized.

kruhjoe

kruhjoe
Admin
Admin

Ta-dah!

Nasty computer virus attacked my fonts! Screen12

Linux Mint 18.2 Cinnamon 64-bit... cool

http://thailandteaching.info

Guest


Guest

The file you mention is not a/the virus.

What Is Msjhbd.ttc?
Msjhbd.ttc is a type of TTC file associated with Microsoft Windows developed by Microsoft Corporation for the Windows Operating System. The latest known version of Msjhbd.ttc is 6.3.9600.16384, which was produced for Windows 8.1. This TTC file carries a popularity rating of 1 stars and a security rating of "UNKNOWN".

kruhjoe

kruhjoe
Admin
Admin

SA80 wrote:The file you mention is not a/the virus.

I know that msjhbd.ttc in normal case is not a virus. It's a font called Microsoft JhengHei Bold. I was just suspecting that it was infected or corrupted by some virus.

Msjhbd.ttc problems can be attributed to corrupt or missing files, invalid registry entries associated with Msjhbd.ttc, or a virus / malware infection.

That's why Avast indicated an error with that file (at all of its different locations on my computer), and that's why every letter changed into weird looking characters on my desktop. Not sure, just guessing...

Anyway, it's gone now. yess!!

http://thailandteaching.info

gungchang

gungchang
Senior member
Senior member

kruhjoe wrote:Ta-dah!

Linux Mint 18.2 Cinnamon 64-bit... cool

I'm impressed.  A man of action, you are!

(Of course you're a man of action.  You fired up this board.)

Headaches are in your future.  You're not in Kansas anymore. But, you will learn your way around and never worry about "activation" or "genuine" or mandatory upgrades & updates again.

I suspect you've already found the other backgrounds.

Nasty computer virus attacked my fonts! Screen10

And you can use your own, of course.

Nasty computer virus attacked my fonts! Screen10

If you're booting from the GRUB menu, this is how and where you edit it.
Nasty computer virus attacked my fonts! Screen14

Nasty computer virus attacked my fonts! Screen11
Nasty computer virus attacked my fonts! Screen12

You'll notice a jpg file in the /boot/grub directory.  This is the background image for the GRUB menu.

If you want to do this, you need first need to be "root" (admin in Windows), aka superuser, to do anything with the root directory.  "sudo thunar" is an easy way to do this.  (thunar is your file manager.)

Drop a jpg file into the /boot/grub directory and run "sudo-update grub"

After doing that, you can clean up the grub menu, eg, replace "windows boot manager" with "Windows 10" and all those Linux Mint entries with "Linux" or "Mint" or whatever.

This time, do not run "update-grub" or you will lose your changes.

You'll by now have noticed that you can change colors in the menu.

Making the font larger is a bit more work, and the instructions are a little harder to google than they once were, but the intel is out there.  (Or, I can send you a font and the code for the grub menu.)

If you become curious about Ubuntu or Kubuntu or Lubuntu or Ubuntu Mate, etc., those desktops can be installed and when you log on you choose which environment you want to use.  This involves some risk. I've crashed at least one installation that way.

I'll stop you pestering you now.  Good luck with your new friend.

9Nasty computer virus attacked my fonts! Empty Trying Linux Tue Aug 08, 2017 8:50 am

kruhjoe

kruhjoe
Admin
Admin

Thanks again, Gungchang.

Took me a while to figure out how to change the boot sequence in the 'Grub', as I still prefer W10 to be my primary OS. But it's OK now. thumbs up

http://thailandteaching.info

10Nasty computer virus attacked my fonts! Empty dual boot default OS Tue Aug 08, 2017 3:56 pm

gungchang

gungchang
Senior member
Senior member

kruhjoe wrote:I still prefer W10 to be my primary OS.

You can also change the boot order in your UEFI (aka BIOS) menu and make Windows first and Ubuntu 2nd.

This will avoid GRUB altogether.

To use your new lifeboat, you'll then need to either:

1) change the boot order back to Ubuntu 1st & Windows 2nd, or

2) tell WIndows 10 to use the old Legacy (XP & Windows 7) start menu instead of the Metro menu (Windows 8 & 10).

Instead of choosing Windows 10 from the menu, hit the "ESC" key and the 2nd item on the UEFI boot order menu (Ubuntu/GRUB) will come up.

This is the command you run from within Windows, as administrator, to do this:

bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy legacy

You might also be interested in EasyBCD

http://neosmart.net/Download/Register

It's free and helps keeps Windows happy with its new open source neighbor on your hard drive.

Sirchai

Sirchai
Senior member
Senior member

kruhjoe wrote:I've been struggling hard for the past three days to try to get rid of a virus that took control over my computer without losing much data.

The infected file seemed to be msjhbd.ttc, located in the Windows\Fonts folder. thumbs down

All texts and panels looked funny on my desktop, and everything worked terribly slowly.   i'm angry

First I tried Avast boot-time scan. It could identify the erroneous file (showing as 'Data error') but it just couldn't delete it. i don't know

As a second attempt, I tried to locate and remove the file manually. But as soon as I reached its folder, everything just went frozen. Only hard reboot could restart my computer. Trying to remove it from the Registry also had the same (no) result. forehead

Startup repair and system restore options had also failed.  weeping

What I could still have done is to remove my hard disk, connect it to another computer via a USB-to-SATA cable, and erase the infected files. But I just couldn't have bothered taking apart my laptop; so the final solution I chose was to reinstall Windows 10 from scratch. tired

Good that I had backups of most of my personal files and settings, so it didn't take much time to recover my computer.
(Only 3 days!) laugh out loud

Well, this is how I spent my weekend. How about you?

Have you experienced anything similar to this?


Yep. And I think I can top it. ( lol now possible)

  It happened to the worst time ever, when I'd just finished typing 750 student names and numbers on a spreadsheet when it happened without a warning.

My hard drive died and there's no way to restart, restore, or anything else. First I've tried was to see if the files were still visible on another PC and they were.

I had to finish the crap and used my second PC to start over again. I've reached a limit where I was very close to quitting teaching because it was my third full weekend in a role where I had to work hard to get all student books in shape and I had to correct a few thousand worksheets.

 

 Okay, cloning was the only alternative for me. But I had no time to clone it with my other PC because that can take days. I went to a Thai guy who's really good, bought a new 1 TB drive at the shop where he works and asked him if he can do it and he did it.

 The new hd was then connected to my old one, sitting on another PC. It was a nice feeling when I picked it up after paying 200 baht for the long session and went home. I put the drive back in, made a restart and only a few things had to be changed and I was back to normal.That's what I thought.

 It happened again and the thingy wasn't startable and even when I played an older backup on, I couldn't get into settings and a couple of other things.

 Three more backups didn't help me to find the culprit. Then I formatted the new drive and put the newest back up on, by using Macrium, the free version.
   
 After 5 days working always in the evening, it worked well and I was back to normal. Until now, I've got no idea what the problem was. But when I cleaned my drive C and also deleted the windows old, it turned out that there're 21 GB of Window programs on my drive C.

I went through hell, but I finally found the way back. Now I backed all up on two different external drives.I wouldn't even wish my biggest enemies to go through such a pain in the arshe. crying

 P.S. If something similar happens again, KruJoe, please download KVRT ( Kaspersky Virus Removal Tool)

,https://www.techspot.com/downloads/4964-kaspersky-virus-removal-tool.html
scan your machine and if it's not better, download a free trial of Kasperky Antivirus here

:https://www.kaspersky.com/downloads/thank-you/antivirus-free-trial

 If that doesn't find it, please download a great tool called "Spy Hunter" here:

( It does find the weird Trojans and thingies that others don't find.)

https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/6166153/SpyHunter_4.1.11.0___Crack

Guest


Guest

"Okay, cloning was the only alternative for me. "

So you cloned the drive with the infection on, and expected the outcome to be different?

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Einstein.

gungchang

gungchang
Senior member
Senior member

Perhaps the lesson that we can all agree on is that external hard drives aren't that expensive.

Nor are flash drives, for that matter.

Back up, back up, back up!

Good Gawd, man, did you say thousands of worksheets?
I for one could commit suicide for less!

Of course, I have flash drives coming out the wazoo and recently wiped out an external hard drive.  Maybe I'm not the best person to listen to.

I'm downloading spy hunter now for those occasions when I must fraternize with Sauron, the Dark Lord (use Win10).

kruhjoe

kruhjoe
Admin
Admin

How about cloud drives, like OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.?
Are they safe enough to store your files?

http://thailandteaching.info

gungchang

gungchang
Senior member
Senior member

I need a VPN in the PRC if I want to use anything Google.

Both Google and Microsoft have grown too Orwellian for my comfort, so right now I don't use One Drive or Google Drive.

I think I have used Dropbox. I recall having to install a program on all my computers, remember a password, etc.

If it's a small file, something like grades, I email the files from one of my email addresses to another and stash it on a flash drive. It's analogous to a family of four that will put each member on a different flight rather than fly together so that no one crash can wipe out everybody.

The concern I have with using a backup program, be it to a drive or the cloud, is that sometimes the back up file gets corrupted.  In a perfect world, I'd clone the drive once and then save all work to both drives. Or, instead of cloning, just install Mint on one and Ubuntu on the other, and save anything of value to both.

Of course, files such as Nong Natt vs. Ninja Geisha Sluts From Hell tend to fill all my drives rather quickly.

If you have a dual boot, you can create a third partition, or a common partition, which is a common thing to do.  Save files wherever you usually do in whichever OS you're in, and save them on the common partition as well.  If the drive dies, you're still screwed.  If the OS goes down, you've still got your files.

I personally save "normally" and to an external drive.  I have Linux installed on another partition on this external drive, which I never use.  If the day comes when my hard drive won't boot, I'll pin my hopes of being able to boot from the external drive and access my files.  If that fails, I'll boot from a recovery flash drive.

Win10 had certainly badgered me to use One Drive, back when I hadn't found a Linux VPN with a GUI, and I'd like to hear from people who use it, especially if it doesn't require a Microsoft account and if it can be accessed by Linux, Android, IOS, and a Mac.

Guest


Guest

I must be "old-school", I back up to CDs and DVDs.

:-)

17Nasty computer virus attacked my fonts! Empty zip drives Thu Aug 10, 2017 9:27 am

gungchang

gungchang
Senior member
Senior member

SA80 wrote:I must be "old-school", I back up to CDs and DVDs. :-)

Yes and no.  I'm no expert, but isn't software and media still released on DVD?

This is old school.

Nasty computer virus attacked my fonts! Zipdrive

Nasty computer virus attacked my fonts! Lpt-port-conternt

I found only XP would recognize mine.

For those with really long memories:

Nasty computer virus attacked my fonts! 7ec62602c4546e0cbd32887c04297a45

Nasty computer virus attacked my fonts! Atari-800-cassette

I'm old enough to have actually used this equipment when it was still contemporary.



Last edited by gungchang on Thu Aug 10, 2017 10:30 am; edited 1 time in total

Guest


Guest

Many "happy" hours typing in programs to the ZX series of computers :-)

Sirchai

Sirchai
Senior member
Senior member

SA80 wrote:"Okay, cloning was the only alternative for me. "

So you cloned the drive with the infection on, and expected the outcome to be different?

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Einstein.


  Where have you read something about a virus?

The hard drive only had a bad sector. It wasn't about my operating system, I've got it backed up on two external drives.

A lot of important stuff on my drive D, in form of 730 GB files were very important for me is back on my new drive.

 The PC booted well after cloning, but the problem was too many Windows old installations, altogether 22 Gb on drive C.



Last edited by Sirchai on Mon Aug 14, 2017 11:09 am; edited 3 times in total

Sirchai

Sirchai
Senior member
Senior member

kruhjoe wrote:How about cloud drives, like OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.?
Are they safe enough to store your files?

These are safe to have access to your files wherever you are. But not enough capacity for a backup.

 Each Hotmail account comes with 5 GB of storage which gives you access to all your files wherever you are.

  Macrium, the paid version offers cloud storage for an affordable price.

   Please see: https://www.macrium.com/products/home

I bought a few 64 GB SAN Disc flash drives for 500 baht each, enough space for my back up. A backup usually takes around 45 minutes only.

 
 In my opinion, it's good enough to have the free version and always a new back up after a new update.

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