Mathmosman

Just a little update... I suddenly realised what the 'dark chirp' was! It's my PC trying to read from a 'floppy disc'. I've inserted a random disc, and the PC appears to be reading it, and the noise has stopped. If I remove the disc, the PC does that louder, more aggressive reading sound, and then continues trying to read from that drive every 10 seconds.

As I'm currently experiencing many technical issues with my HP Pavillion, my mind is wandering towards that "buy a new PC?" question. That said, I think, certainly in the UK, it's hard to decide where to buy a new PC, let alone, what spec it should comprise. The old question of custom built vs. high street retailer is there too. Does anyone in the UK (I'm from the NorthWest/North East Wales) have any recommendations about where to have one custom built? Is anyone aware of models on the high street that would recommend a great buy? I literally want to use a PC for web browsing, music, and also for InDesign & Photoshop. No gaming, no massive downloading... Any help, really gratefully received.

Funny, I'm back!!! My problem is that, because I use my machine SO much in my life, a problem grows [albeit in my head] so quickly... and I get impatient for a solution. The guy who's "repaired" it says that there was near on 20 trojans inside the machine which he's removed. He also detailed that his scans indicated that the hard drive itself has some errors. The guy also informed me that Windows is on just Service Pack 1, so suggested that I update... I've gotten home, plugged everything back in, and whilst the speed is back, it still gives that 'dark chirp' every 10 seconds (which I actually assume could be the hard drive issue?). Furthermore, IE8 and Firefox will not allow me to visit any antivirus sites such as avast.com; nor, connected to above will it allow me to visit any windows update pages. The guy has offered for me to take it back to him, and he'll update to service pack 2 or 3, but he's away for a week... (as am I from Monday!)

Just for information, I've given in, and taken it to a local repair company. Thanks.

Thanks for your reply Ken. I have already done an HP System Recovery. To be honest, I dont know whether the System Recovery erases all of my own created files or not. That said, however, is it still possible for the malware to be in my PC after a system recovery? The reason I ask is that 1) my PC is still making this little (what I'd describe as) 'dark chirp' every 10 seconds, which it started doing when I was experiencing the attack from malware. 2) the PC is running almost exceptionally slow. If I click start and move through a few menus, they're almost all staying present when I move to another. 3) funny that I IE8 or Firefox will not allow me to visit sites such as avast.com to download a virus software. 4) if I attempt to open Norton Antivirus 2004! which came pre-installed in the PC, it opens and immediately closes. Hope you can help.

I appear to have sorted my issue, but now literally every page is "The Page cannot be displayed". Tried what, 20 times to upgrade to IE8.

I've just had to do a complete PC recovery, and when I click to open IE6 (the version I get with my recovery) it crashes before I can do anything. I changed the home page, as detailed about. I changed it to google.co.uk... Clicked on install google chrome, but before I could do anything, it crashes. How can I install any other browsers, or indeed update IE if it crashes so quickly. After experiencing malware meltdown earlier today, I feel at wits end.

hello. Thanks for your reply. unfortunately absolutely nothing happened. in the end, windows itself stopped even trying to boot, so I very reluctantly did a system recovery (HP PC). Thanks for the offer of help though, if you can offer any assistance about recovering any files from before the recovery, I would be IMMENSELY grateful.

hello all! at the weekend, my PC started showing critical hard drive failure messages and a "Windows XP Repair" box. After a major, MY PHOTOS moment, I somehow managed to get the PC going and restore to a previous point. The critical error had gone?! I then found that actually it appears to be malware and had simply turned everything to hidden. However, now it appears to be back, I can't get into windows, can't restore to a previous point and I just can't error messages. Can anyone suggest a course of action?