Restarted pc got 1st Screen no further! Help!

[aarnswife]

I restarted my pc today and it came up with the very first screen and gave the normal options if it stopped there... DEL for setup F8 for this F5 for this...

And then it went no further, I tried DEL F8 and F5 nothing... I realized it wasn't recognizing my keyboard strokes so I tried my keyboard on another pc, it worked fine, I tried a boot disk it didn't see it, I tried a flash drive, nope. It apparently has some sort of virus that has made it not see anything...what can I do? Please help...

Thanks!

[Diurno]

Did you change any hardware?

 

I don't think that viruses can do that, I hope I'm right.

 

I think its probably a problem with the hard drive, do you have a spare hard drive which you can use to test?

[aarnswife]

Yes

 

Well the reason I say I think it's a virus...I was away from hoe today and I found out my son in law was here downloading music from the internet...

 

I do have another hard drive, how would I go about testing it with that?

[aarnswife]

Oops, yes was to the having another harddrive question..

 

I did not change any hardware.

[Diurno]

Oh dear!! Son in law and downloads, not good :) I've done that once to my dad and he wasn't happy :).

 

Here's what you can do:

-Replace your current hard drive with the other hard drive and see if the computer passes the Boot Menu, if it does then obviously it is the hard drive if not then it could be other hardware component.

[Guest Wolfeymole]

In the post screen can you see if the Primary hard drive is listed or not.

[KenB]

If this is a USB keyboard try swapping to a PS2 ( round plug) - or vice versa.

[aarnswife]

Ok, the screen says DEL F8 F5 yada yada

 

 

94M900-M4 (P490MC21 BF)

Main Processor: Intel ® 2.70 GHz (100 x 27.0)

 

Under the DEL F8 Yada Yada

 

12/21/2007 - P4M900-8237A - 6A7L8B06C-00

 

That's all I got, anyone?

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Do you see a POST screen similar to the one shown here?

 

The POST Screen

 

You will note that an IBM hard drive is listed as Primary Master.

 

Do you see this screen?

 

Yada yada is not enough information by the way.

[aarnswife]

That i exactly what I see, only no primary or secondary

 

What Isee is the 2 lines at the top then:

94M900-M4 (P490MC21 BF)

Main Processor: Intel ® 2.70 GHz (100 x 27.0)

 

Then the DEL to enter setup and the F8 and F5 stuff

and then:

12/21/2007 - P4M900-8237A - 6A7L8B06C-00

 

And that's it!

[Guest Wolfeymole]

If you do not see any hard disks shown at all then the drive is dead or not connected securely.

[aarnswife]

Great thanks we will check to see if it is connected securely then I think I have another hard drive around here, so after church we will check it out.

That means I've lost all info if it needs to be replaced, right?

[Guest Wolfeymole]

There is a slight possibility that you may be able to recover your stuff by hooking it up as either Primary Slave or Secondary Master or Slave in another PC.

 

If you adopt this angle and the other PC still does not find the drive then it is well and truly dead.

 

The odds are not looking good though regarding retrieving your stuff sorry to say.

[Diurno]

I completly agree with Wolfeymole comments, I just wanted to ask one thing to which you can possibly answer Wolfeymole. My question is can a virus do this sort of damage to a hard drive?

 

Sorry for going a bit off topic.

[Goku]

I completly agree with Wolfeymole comments, I just wanted to ask one thing to which you can possibly answer Wolfeymole. My question is can a virus do this sort of damage to a hard drive?

 

Sorry for going a bit off topic.

Not really. Virus and infections can only damage the "software" layer of a hard-drive. They can hook on to the hard drive, delete data and stuff, replicate themselves but cannot corrupt the firmware needed to run the hard drive. If they could, then the latest breed of Malware would be impossible to remove.

 

Hope that clears your doubt. :)

 

-- Goku

[Diurno]

Thanks a lot Goku, I didn't know that.

 

I'm always learning :)