So, after getting back from VCF East, I had planned to get to work on a video covering the event. I had considered starting it on Sunday, but needed to recover a bit from all of the driving (I’m not getting any younger!). No big deal, figured I would rest on Sunday and work on the video on Monday.

So, Monday rolls around (a holiday here for many in the U.S., I had the day off). I thought “let’s clear the desk of projects before we edit.” Clearing the desk means testing what I have on the desk so that I can store it away, tested (that’s my rule!). I started in on setting up a Compaq LTE 5380 that came in the mail recently. Set up a boot partition using BootIt as I always do, Rebooted. BootIt partition was gone. WHAT? Is the driving failing?? Tried again, same thing. Tried an SD card. Tried another HDD caddy. All failed. Okay, this is bizarre.

Thought to myself “Could it be a virus? Naa, no way.” Grabbed a copy of F-Prot 3.16f that I had been toying with a few days prior paradoxically. Sure enough, my DOS 6.22 floppy disk had the Stealth.C virus. Oh no!

I literally spent the rest of the day scanning retro PCs for viruses, and this is a task that would extend until Wednesday (granted Tuesday and Wednesday were after work). Needed to do clean boots and copy the F-Prot program over the network since it doesn’t fit on a floppy. I did find a few other files on other computers, and one computer with a “legacy loadout” on it did have a JavaScript virus, but no other systems had the Stealth.C virus thankfully. Makes sense, if they did have it, they probably wouldn’t boot.

I scanned all of my media as well. Not a small task!

Anyway, this explains why my VCF East video isn’t done. But I think for now on I will scan all new files and all new retro machines I get in the mail. As well as write protecting my installation disks!!