alfienoakes Posted November 19, 2007 Share Posted November 19, 2007 A friend has the above laptop, and managed to contract a boot sector virus. The machine is a M Processor 1.3 celeron. He said that he didn't want any of the data on it, so he could just reformat it to save messing around. He put a copy of Windows XP Professional in, and booted off of this disk. Reformated the partition, and proceeded with a new installation of XP. Now I realise that we should have cleaned the bootsector virus off of the machine first, before doing this.. but we didnt. Everything went ok, right up to the point at which all the temp files have been loaded onto the HD and you get the 15 sec restart and red bar. Took out the disk and pressed ok to reboot. Now nothing. The screen doesn't even appear to come on; no backlight at all. The machine is on as the lights come on, and you can hear some regular activity from the hard disk or cd drive. But thats it. I have tried rebooting with the disk in, but nothing. I tried to hook it up to a monitor to see if the screen had packed up, but again nothing. I now am not sure what to do, as I cant see anything or run anything. Has anyone seen anything like this or have any ideas, I would be eternally thankful... Especially as its not mine, and I gave him the old "we'll have this up and running in no time....." line. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
denham Posted November 19, 2007 Share Posted November 19, 2007 Make sure the laptop montior toggle key is turned on. Usually a combination of pressing the FKey & usually a number. You could try a different CD, that would give you access to a command prompt & overwrite the MBR (master boot record) I think it is this command: FDISK /MBR I've had similar things happen before, & the only I was able to do was install Linux & then install windows over that. Partition Magic might help also. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaneis Posted November 20, 2007 Share Posted November 20, 2007 You could remove the HD and plug it into a 2.5" external USB enclosure, then kill the entire disk - as Ryan said - making sure to overwrite the MBR but there is a risk that the virus will jump ship onto the PC it's attached to. Problem with Windows NTFS disks is that they backup the MBR to the end of the disk too - so you will probably have a nice copy of the virus safely stored at the end of the disk...Microsoft are thoughtful, aren't they! Another (and better) option is to download gparted here http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=115843&package_id=173828 Burn the ISO to a bootable or "Live CD". Boot to it on the laptop, format the drive to FAT32 and you're ready to retry the Windows install. This will wipe the entire disk - start to end. Another option would be to boot from an Ubuntu Live CD, open the terminal and type "cfdisk" - no quote marks - this will also let you wipe the HD. All the best, S. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alfienoakes Posted November 20, 2007 Author Share Posted November 20, 2007 Hmm.. The only thing I could try from those suggestions, which I thank you for, is to remove the HD and try it in a usb caddy. Unfortunately I dont have one.. I cant do any of the others as I have NO screen whatsoever. I have tried to use the Fn keys to switch between LCD/ CRT etc liek when you load a projector on to the latop.. nothing. I have taken out the HD and tried to boot to see if I can get any POST info.. nothing.. Thought this might eliminate the HD.. it sort of does.. It just seems dead. I wonder if the mother board has packed up. Without the HD in, if that was the problem, I would have thought I would get some POST behaviour, but nothing..? Not really sure where to go from here.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaneis Posted November 20, 2007 Share Posted November 20, 2007 So you can't even see the splash screen when you boot? According to the manufacturer's website, you need to hold down the "DEL" button after you turn it on to load into BIOS. If you can do that, you have a chance. If not, it sounds like some serious hardware failure or one nasty virus. You'll have trouble trying to flash the BIOS considering they don't have a floppy drive either. You could still try using an Ubuntu Live CD...open the CD tray and put the Ubuntu disc in(while the laptop is off), close it and power up. This will take a minute or so. If you still see nothing on screen, your screen or graphics has definately died. As for the HD, put it back in the laptop before you try to start up again. If we can get to the BIOS stage, change the boot order to make the CD/DVD the first boot device. After that's done, it'll be a breeze. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alfienoakes Posted November 20, 2007 Author Share Posted November 20, 2007 Nope.. No screen splash or anything. Nil.. Nadder..!! Tried restarting with Del key held down, but nothing.. There isnt even the whirring of a hard disk when it starts up.. just nothing. The only sound I do get is, as mentioned, the CD drive flicking over every 10 secs or so. Thats it.. With the HD out it does exactly the same. There is an absence of flashing lights when I turn it on as well, you know usually you get the full flash of all HD, power etc.. but nothing. Just the little "bulb" light comes on and thats it. Nothing else from that point..? We did have it booting off of the CD previous to this problem, thats how we wiped the HD.. but this has foxed me as there is no audible errors or any screen action at all..? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaneis Posted November 20, 2007 Share Posted November 20, 2007 The only other trick that I can think of is to take the battery out and leave it completely without power for a good 30 mins or more - really let everything drain out of it. Going off what you've said, the only things I could place as the culprit would be a CMOS fault, a broken BIOS or motherboard failure. Why this may have happened is anyones guess. Seems that other Advent laptops have done this too (found some similar posts to yours online) If the power-drain approach doesn't work, then I think it might unfortunately end up in the "cheaper to buy a new one" category. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alfienoakes Posted November 20, 2007 Author Share Posted November 20, 2007 Shane, Thanks for your help. Looks like that is also a no goer. Took the battery out, left it on the side for a while, 1 hour or so, and still we are dead. I suppose even trying to take the CMOS battery out wont make any real difference either.? Actually, thats a thought. If the battery where to fail, you would get a similar problem at start up would you not? No info nothing as the machine basically is devoid of any information..? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alfienoakes Posted November 20, 2007 Author Share Posted November 20, 2007 OK.. Last one.. for a bit.. When it powers up, the DVD light is the only visible thing that is doing something. It flashes 4 times, then stops for about 10 secs, then does it again .. and this is a cycle. Thats it.. have had a look around, and most things do point to a dead mobo.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
denham Posted November 20, 2007 Share Posted November 20, 2007 Try the linux live cd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alfienoakes Posted November 23, 2007 Author Share Posted November 23, 2007 Problem solved... He's bought a new one for 400 quid.. Not worth wasting anymore time on it.. And nothing worked unfortunately.... So its dead..!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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