Security Breach

I don't usually write in English, but this post is full of technical terms and that makes it better and easier if written in English.

The past few days were very exhausting days, yes I was attacked!
I was trying to watch a video on a website, it asked me to download a file (.exe file – most dangerous type of files "executable files"), of course I was careful, and I checked the label and every thing possible, it was from Microsoft! I clicked "run" and soon I realized that something was wrong.
A flash took me back to the "Computer Security" class where Mr. Hakeem, a strict tough teacher, asked a question with a challenging look in his eyes: "you are the head of the IT department in a big company, you detected an attack on the system, it is steeling your data, what should you do?" our answers varies from a logical algorithms to strong anti viruses and firewalls to the server ports blocking, etc. "No, no" he kept saying. "It is very stupid and direct thing you have to do!" he said. We gave up then he screamed, literarily screamed, "unplug the power, take all servers down!" Yes, I admit, we were stupid not to answer such a trivial answer.
Back to "my" security breach, I directly disconnected the internet to switch off the connection channel, and turned off the laptop.
I opened it saying "besm ellah", hoping for the best putting in mind the worst! Alhamdullelah I can see the windows operating system loading, at least the windows still operates!
I entered my password, waited.. waited nothing appears! I begged the laptop to let me see the desktop, my files, my pictures, I'm destroyed! I started acting Shakespeare's most miserable characters! Blaming my self on my carelessness of taking periodical backups as I learnt and actually planned! Unfortunately my efforts went unrewarded and the desktop didn't appear! I started making some sort of statistics to count the dead bodies, sorry, I mean lost files, what can be restored, what is lost forever (with tears). After many attempts and prayers I got to open the task manager! Ok good start! I checked the menus to see what choices I have, I found (run) I didn't know that I can find it there! Ok, good. Now let me try any command I know that might help. Tried so many, then I opened the notepad, from the open menu I was able to see my dear files again, they are there, but I can't reach them! Next step is to copy what I can to any storage media (flash memory, or external Hard disk) since I can't write to the CD or the DVD without using a software. The question is: will the laptop be able to communicate with the flash memory or the HD? Let's give it a try. Yes it worked! Successfully I transferred one notepad file to the flash memory (still I'm not sure if the files where infected or not, but I had a theory that if I would design a virus, I would focus on attacking the operating system where most of people will have no choice but to format the laptop and loose all the data, and maybe.. maybe I'll think of attacking the files) in this case I hope that I stopped the attack at the correct moment. Moving the files one by one is not a good idea, I'll spend days doing it! Another problem is that I was unable to copy neither the folders nor some types of files.
Tried to google a command to open Microsoft word. I found this command "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\WINWORD.EXE" It worked and Microsoft word was there. Now, I need to copy a total of 50 GB and I'm not 100% sure that the files are clean. I can't risk copying the files to my HD and infecting all the files.
I ran to Carrefour in order to buy a new HD, it was night and you can imagine the traffic, it took me one hour and a half. Any way I spent two hours transferring the files, then I fell a sleep. Next day was the journey of search for the laptop recovery CD. I hid it in a safe place which I can't recall now! I searched her and there, finally I found it, formatted the laptop, I really wanted to add some tide, Clorox and Dettol to the CD to make sure that no viruses, germs and bacteria can stay there. It took two more days to find the software CDs and install them. It's time to check my files; they were still in the quarantine. I was glad that they passed the antivirus scan! Oooooooooooooooof! My dear files.

Bottom of the line: ALWAYS keep a backup of your data, and never ever install .exe files unless you are downloading them from the official Microsoft website!

Note: I mentioned the technical details hoping that it will help somebody somewhere facing the same problem!