Boring post, but I’m freaking out!

Last week, avidtvfan (Marissa) posted that she had gotten infected with a virus that was propagating to her friends on AIM. I use a Mac, so the risk of me being infected was rather small, but you know, I’d been hearing rumors about some files starting to affect macs now that they’re becoming more popular and all of that… And my computer has been running slower than I remember, so I went looking around the internet, found reputable AntiVirus software (Sophos Antivirus for those who are curious)… Ran it, and it found two viruses and promptly deleted them! Yay!

Or no. Today, I open my mail program (Eudora), start downloading my mail and notice that one of my filters isn’t working–my school email is ending up in my Inbox rather than the handy dandy mailbox I’ve created. I go to hand move it–and discover that the entire mailbox is gone. Poof. It’s not anywhere on my hard drive. Um, this is three entire years of email communication. Lot of it junk, but there were also pictures from my classmates and their kids or emails that Chris and I exchanged while he was in Ghana.

Or most important: registration information and PASSWORDS for all of my residency applications. Gone. Just like that.

I checked the log and sure enough: Virus: ‘W32/Bagle-HTML’ detected in Julia Durrant:Users:jcd1013:Documents:Eudora Folder:Mail Folder:ms2006/Content/Embed0004/ReScan/Content
Deleted infected file

See that “Documents:Eudora Folder: Mail Folder:ms2006” bit?–yeah it deleted the entire folder. My preferences (as I have since discovered) are sent to be automatically deleted. And it ain’t in my trashcan.

Peachy. Just peachy.

Any Mac users (or computer whizzes) out there who might have an idea of how I might retrieve my files? Anyone? Bueller?

ETA: After talking with my dad (he’s my personal computer guru) and searching around apple.com and discovering that I could spend over a hundred dollars (!!!) on software and probably not get anything back and “next time you should make a backup of your mail” it hit me. Back up. I made a backup of my mail sometime ago. Pulled out my CD–Nov. 2004. Then I went and looked on my school’s email program–and my messages from November 2004 and onward were present. So I didn’t lose my mail. I’ve made it more difficult for me to find a message, but it’s all there. I think. *wipes brow*

Thanks for all of the advice, my beloved flist! It really helped me know where to even start looking. *BIG GIGANTIC HUGS*