Black Screen After Downloading Avast

[raj_head]

My girlfriend called me up and told me how she was downloading a file and a popup appeared saying how her computer is infected and she needs to download this program to get the virus. And of course, not being the most computer savvy person, and to my utter disbelief, she clicked yes. AVG caught a few virus and she moved them to the vault and deleted them.

 

I then recommended that she get Avast as AVG is not the most reliable program and gave her the link to download it from downloads.com (i had just done the same and it works fine). After downloading the program she took the option to reboot and then she says "after rebooting a black screen came up and said it was checking the C:/ Drive for viruses and i just closed the lid putting the laptop to sleep".

 

After trying to turn the computer back on, she can hear the fan come on and the computer booting up but now there is only a black screen and no amount of taking the battery out or re-tries is making a differece.

 

If anyone has any ideas they would be most welcome! Thanks

 

Its a Sony Vaio (one of the CR series i think)

OS is Vista

[AdvancedSetup]

When you say there is only a black screen do you see the MFG startup screen that says like Sony Vaio? or a BIOS screen or something else LONG before Windows would normally try to start up?

 

If you're not seeing the normal DOS Start Screen then you have some other issue as Windows issues can not affect that screen.

[raj_head]

There is nothing at all i dont think. No BIOS screen or windows boot screen or anything. It sounds to me almost like a hardware problem where the screen packs in (happened to me with my old laptop) though this happening just after a virus attack seems a bit suspect. Do you think its a serious issue affecting DOS aswell? Can a virus do that?

[Seth]

As AS suggested, the software has nothing to do with the symptoms you described.

 

Pull the power plug on the laptop, remove the battery, wait 30 minutes, then try the lappy without the battery.

[Bluesplayer.]

If the above dosen't work you may have to repair the Master Boot Record.

Check link for how to do that.

XP: Repair or fix master boot record using recovery console - Tech-Recipes.com

 

But you do run the risk of losing data on the hard drive.

[AdvancedSetup]

An invalid MBR would not affect the BIOS screen from displaying - in fact it would make it even more obvious as it would potentially halt the system there depending on what type of MBR issue it was.

[Bluesplayer.]

Yes the MBR shouldn't stop the Bios screen from starting.

But not always, for they are really working hand in hand.

 

When the BIOS boots the machine, it will look for instructions and information on how to boot the disk.

The master boot record contains Master Partition Table and the Master Boot Code.

 

The master boot record contains the small initial boot program that the BIOS loads and executes to start the boot process.

[AdvancedSetup]

Yes it will but it won't stop you form entering into the BIOS or displaying something on screen which he claims there is nothing.

 

Master boot record