Fidney
28-11-2004, 22:04
Hi,
A mate has contracted a virus on his PC and it's baffling me.
His nipper was playing an internet game (on the Smile web-site) on Saturday morning and shut the PC down at lunchtime. Everything was fine.
After lunch my mate tried to boot and the BIOS reported that it could not detect his HDD. Assuming his HDD had failed he trotted off to PC World and bought a new hard disc (not the first thing I would do in the same circumstances!)
He removed his old HDD (the only one in his PC) and connected the new one.
Then he booted with his Windows XP CD, which reported that it had detected a virus. Where the hell from? So he phones me for help (!!!!!). All I could think of was his BIOS. So he shut down, opened up his PC and crossed the jumpers on his mobo to reset the BIOS. Then he could boot just fine and install Windows.
Figuring that that was the problem hw shut down, disconnected his new drive and reconnected his old one. Lo and behold the PC booted up and ran just fine.
The following day he boots up and the BIOS is unable to detect his hard drive again!!! This time he merely shuts down, resets his BIOS then reboots - again the PC is working just fine. He's rebooted several times today and it works A-OK. He's purchased McAfee VirusScan which reports that his system is clean.
So, apart from now being the proup possessor of an un-necessary hard drive, he still has this mysterious virus which McAfee can't find but which is probably still lurking somewhere as he's not removed anything, so it's bound to put in an appearance again sooner or later.
I've been searching on-line, and it sounds quite similar to the CIH/Chernobyl virus, but that isn't supposed to effect XP.
Any experts out there with any ideas?
A mate has contracted a virus on his PC and it's baffling me.
His nipper was playing an internet game (on the Smile web-site) on Saturday morning and shut the PC down at lunchtime. Everything was fine.
After lunch my mate tried to boot and the BIOS reported that it could not detect his HDD. Assuming his HDD had failed he trotted off to PC World and bought a new hard disc (not the first thing I would do in the same circumstances!)
He removed his old HDD (the only one in his PC) and connected the new one.
Then he booted with his Windows XP CD, which reported that it had detected a virus. Where the hell from? So he phones me for help (!!!!!). All I could think of was his BIOS. So he shut down, opened up his PC and crossed the jumpers on his mobo to reset the BIOS. Then he could boot just fine and install Windows.
Figuring that that was the problem hw shut down, disconnected his new drive and reconnected his old one. Lo and behold the PC booted up and ran just fine.
The following day he boots up and the BIOS is unable to detect his hard drive again!!! This time he merely shuts down, resets his BIOS then reboots - again the PC is working just fine. He's rebooted several times today and it works A-OK. He's purchased McAfee VirusScan which reports that his system is clean.
So, apart from now being the proup possessor of an un-necessary hard drive, he still has this mysterious virus which McAfee can't find but which is probably still lurking somewhere as he's not removed anything, so it's bound to put in an appearance again sooner or later.
I've been searching on-line, and it sounds quite similar to the CIH/Chernobyl virus, but that isn't supposed to effect XP.
Any experts out there with any ideas?