With the VRDB set to scan while using any screensaver, or with the “idle” approach, how long does it keep scanning? I understand that it makes back up copies of files. If you have large files, wouldn’t it literally fill up the hard drive after while?
Does it scan just system files?
Former AVG user. I find Avast! a much cleaner simpler solution. Just not sure if it would play nice if I installed ThreatFire 3 for checking malware and spyware? www.threatfire.com
takes mine around 15-18 minutes to complete when I run it manually, I have a 40Gb hard drive
I have 3 SATA drives. C: & D: and another OS are on my larger drive, 320GB. E: is on the 80GB SATA, and G: is on the 120GB SATA drive. G is mostly a back up drive where things are stored from a backup software program I use called Tubro Backup. It keeps the pictures, documents, excel files, addresses, mail and other things that are not easily replaceable on this “G” drive. I have turned it off for scanning, but with all this, and being networked, it looks like the scanning and hard drives will work hours and days.
The VRDB does not back up files as such, as has been explained before somewhere here, so you shouldn’t think of it as a substitute for a backup utility. Instead it saves data (don’t ask me what) which can (hopefully) be used for restoring an infected file to its original clean condition.
That’s why the generated VRDB, while fairly sizeable (without looking, something like 20 megs on my system rings a bell), is only a tiny fraction of the size of the files it’s protecting.
Mike, would it be worth the effort then to include the backed up VRDB file in my backup program, so each morning at 2:00 it, along with other backup folders and files go to the G drive?
I suppose it wouldn’t hurt, since these days 20 (or whatever) megs is a tiny decimal-faction of your probable free space.
My system came with RestoreIT installed, which does essentially the same thing for the entire drive the first boot-up each morning. But it’s not useful as a backup tool, since it’s an all-or-nothing thing - I can’t backup or restore only selected files.
Where is this file located that I might include it in backups? Also during a scan last night (screensaver mode) it found Malware from a My Documents folder in my MySQL database stuff. I told it to put it in the chest. Where is the chest?
If you look in the folder-tree where avast is installed (normally Program Files\Alwil\Avast4), under Data you’ll see a number of folders. The VRDB is a single file in Integ, and the Chest folder is obvious.