Sorry to hear this sad news Jaap.

Yes, backup is essential, I use an external HD from Lacie, I also back up on spare HD's and old working PC's.

I presume your work that is on your page can still be downloaded and backed up.

I am so sorry, Jaap.
Unfortunately, I KNOW what it is to lose UNIQUE documents ... which you cannot find anywhere else after (:o(( ...
Hope to see you back soon here, my dear friend.

Je suis triste pour toi, cher Jaap ! J'espère que ça va s'arranger, my friend...

That is really bad news, Jaap. I hope, that you will be able to recover at least some of your data. I backup daily on an external HD (disconnect after backup! !) with Personal Backup, a very well maintained freeware from the University of Kiel. All commercial products I tried were inferior or grossly unreliable or encrypted the data meaning you always need that SW to recover the data. In addition I backup the image of my installation with Macrium Reflect. Gdata IS protects my system against attacks (hopefully). So far I did not have any problems, but that locker is really a nasty thing. We all have to watch out here. Thanks for the heads up and greets, Lutz

Thank you so much Lutz. Now I'm trying to recover/renew documents and pics (from Ipernity, Flickr, Blurb). Do you have a link to that 'Personal Backup'

Oh that is so bad. Sorry to hear about you attack and the loss of you photos and documents. Did you open an email from an unknown person to you ?????????????? I never open emails that I do know the sender. Rather ignore the email of unknowns rather than risk an attack. Best wishes Jaap Regards Tess

No Tess it looked like an email from a very well known company (my Internet provider). I opened an attachment and then the virus started to encrypt documents and pictures.

personal-backup.rathlev-home.de/index-e.html

Good luck

So very sad! I'm very sorry for you; can only imagine how angry you are. If it's any help to you, I back-up with Carbonite. It's a well-respected and trustworthy company. They do a great job. Also, I know you recognized the sender, but I delete every email I do not recognize and then delete by deletes on a regular basis. Not foolproof, but it helps. Again, so very sorry!! Kathleen

Thank you Lutz.
Installed the program, but don't understand enough of what/how to use it.

I never open unexpected mails even if they appear to come from a friend or family member. As I use Web mail all emails remain on a server unopened until I have checked with those stated as authors, I often get mails from my cousins husband with weird subject lines so I ring him and ask, he told me he has a trojan that sends mails on a regular basis and it cannot be removed totally without formatting and re installing everything.

Erg om dat te horen Jaap. Veel succes in het weer op orde krijgen van je computer en het terugkrijgen van al je beeldmateriaal

Ko

Ähnliches vor vielen Jahren erlebt.
Seitdem gebe ich Geld für den Virenschutz (Norton) aus, Backup ist Standard und Fotodateien ziehe ich erst auf eine externe HD.
Hoffe, Du hast nicht alle Daten verloren.
Viele Grüße, Uwe

... admittedly the prgram is a bit confusing at first sight. This is mainly because of all the options you may or may not use. There ist a fairly good Help file on the homepage, which guides you through the process. And you can always immediately see, what you have backed uop, since the files are not encrypted.

There is another very good reason, to make daily backups. Your hard disk will definitely fail one day, and mostly as a total surprise without any warning, unless you analyze the SMART data on a daily basis, and even then you cannot be sure.