2013 Archives

[Qjiggy]

Can anyone help?

I would consider myself an expert on computers but not an all star. I think my computer has been infected with some malware, virus, whatever.

First symptom: it doesn't boot up in this order, cd/DVD rom then hard drive. By default, and if not, I always enable this because its common sense for me. Now the boot up sequence has changed - strange

Second symptom: I've used many passwords and I do cycle them and time to time I change. I've tried 90% of all possible passwords that I may have used....no dice

Third symptom: I used to reset to default install done per quarterly in a year. I missed one quarter. My system right now is unstable. Before it would boot up in less than a minute. Now it takes 5 minutes - strange

So my problem: I want to re-instal to factory default but can't because since the boot sequence is changed, I cannot type the proper password to change boot up to CDROM. Please help

Edit: some reason, it did boot up to CDROM and started the recovery process. However, when it asked me to partition my hard disk, the capacity mentioned on the screen said 0.0 gb. That to me is strange so I clicked on cancel; thinking that maybe the virus or whatever it is has reside itself in the 0 boot sector part. I still need help

[Qjiggy]

Quick update:

Removing the CMOS battery does reset the BIOS to factory default.

I have re-configured my bios, and now using my re-install disk to format my hdd and install everything. This time when I'm portioning, it shows the proper data. Before it showed 0.0 and I'm glad I didn't continue because it would have infected and possible mess up my computer more.

Key take away:
1. Removing the CMOS battery will reset BIOS

And I did google how to reset CMOS and BIOS and came up with videos and many articles. Downloading a software will not fix your computer; maybe it does but I am always wary of the things we find on the Internet. Do plenty of research and if you decide to fix it yourself, be prepared to make mistakes that would cause you to buy a new computer. It's what happened to me in the past and I am glad all those trial and error, I posted a problem and replied to myself with the solution.

Happy trails )