ran CC and many of my documents 'date modified' was updated. Now they won't open...

[levinth]

Would say 90% of my documents (Vista pc) will not open. Even trying to copy to a flash drive I get errors that the file extension is not valid and that the extensions dn't match the format of the file.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated...

[levinth]

Forum - give me some ideas here - i'm completely toast. My tech support hasn't a clue how to help. I found a very similar post on here so seems this might have happened to others. Here is a paste from that post:

 

"AshdownDec 23 2008, 11:55 PM

I am using CC Cleaner Version 2.15.815.

 

I ran CC Cleaner at 23.12.2008 5.28 pm and all of the Word, Excel, Adobe,Zip,Txt,Jpeg,HTML files on my C drive and the My Documents drive were all modified and all of them were given the modified date of 23.12.2008 5.28 pm. None of these files will now open.

 

Error messages as follows:

 

1. Excel - This file is not in a recognisable format

2. Word - Microsoft Word cannot import the specified format. This feature is not currently installed. Would you like to install it now?

3. Adobe - Adobe reader could not open file either it is noty a supported file type or because the file has been damaged.

 

My D drive was not affected and all of the Word, Excel, Adobe,Zip,Txt,Jpeg,HTML files on that drive still have their correct dates and all open OK. Hence, Word, Excel, Adobe etc are working OK on my computer.

 

During the CC Cleaning, I saw that it was taking longer than normal and I could see it was doing something with the files on my C drive but I did not realise that it was modifying them.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

 

The sequence of events is as follows:

 

My PC became infected with Malware (Zlob and Rooings) a few days ago. Symptoms were that using Google Search in Internet Explorer was being redirected to incorrect sites (advertising sites). Google worked OK in other browsers (Firefox, opera, Netscape).

 

I downloaded and used CC Cleaner without any problems in normal mode and a number of on-line Malware scanners and removed the malware with 3 of them that located it (Malwarebytes, Trendmicro Housecall, a-squared, Bitdefender, Ewido and Panda Active Scan 2). The Malware returned the next day (in the Restore section) so I then downloaded and installed a-squared Anti-Malware Version 4.0. and re-did all the Malware scans with Restore off and again removed the malware. The problem then occurred with CC Cleaner. The a-squared log shows the CC Cleaner being initaited at 23/12/2008 5:37:59 PM so there isn't any doubt that the problem occurred during the CC Cleaner scan.

 

The significance of this is that using CC Cleaner as part of the Malware removal process is commonly done.

 

There is one other reference to something similar occurring with CC Cleaner back in Feb 2006 on this Forum (Corrupted files) but they weren't certain that CC Cleaner was involved. In my case, there is absolutely no doubt.

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Any thoughts, similar experiences,suggestions?

 

 

QUOTE (Ashdown)

It is possible that while CC was scanning through folders, a security application was scanning all the files within those folders, links were created from the temporary files and the affected files modified and overwriiten."

 

Let me know if you can offer any ideas to work with ... much appreciated. T

[Augeas]

No great suggestions, but this isn't - in my experience - normal CC behaviour. CC doesn't modify files.

 

Ashdown had problems with malware, are you sure you're not infected, especially that your ccleaner.exe isn't infected? What's the last mod date of ccleaner.exe? Is it later than the installation date? I would copy the CC folder to a usb drive under a new name (cc bad etc) for future examination and delete the folder on your hard drive.

 

About a year ago I had a nasty virus that inserted its code into exe files. When I ran an exe, which I did, it destroyed my pc. You don't seem to be having such devastating behaviour, but it could be an infection of some sort. By the way my virus just flew past AVG, which is why I changed to Avast, which did detect it.

 

I should do a full virus scan. You could post this topic in the Spyware Hell forum where it will receive the attention of more knowledgable people than me.

 

What happens if you rename the extension of a known file to its proper ext? Can you open the file then?

 

 

Good find, Hazel (below). There's nothing like being in the dark.

[hazelnut]

Perhaps the bit you did before using ccleaner may have contributed to this issue do you think?

 

http://www.techsupportforum.com/microsoft-...ow-corrupt.html

[levinth]

Perhaps the bit you did before using ccleaner may have contributed to this issue do you think?

 

http://www.techsupportforum.com/microsoft-...ow-corrupt.html

 

Thanks. Yes somehow the combination I believe is what has caused this. I don't know why the CC run would correspond to the mass of files having their date modified updated.

[Augeas]

According to the linked post your problems started when you 'ran a malware prgm called CacheCleaner'. Have you installed or run CCleaner?

[hazelnut]

I think there are a couple of issues here.

 

Why are you referring to ccleaner as a malware program called CacheCleaner?

 

Also you attempted to copy the entire 'My documents' folder to your laptop and then canceled it after half an hour.

 

You then ran ''ccleaner'' and noticed that you are unable to open some things. However you said

 

Was there some temp pointer type file created during my aborted backup operation that was then deleted when I emptied my temp files etc when I ran Cache Cleaner

 

I think it would have helped more if you could have given all the info in your first post don't you?

 

Have you tried restoring some of your file associations?

 

http://www.winhelponline.com/articles/105/...dows-Vista.html