(no subject)
Sat, Feb. 21st, 2009 10:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterHey,
So Rachel's computer seems to be fried... she says got the Spyware Protector virus, ran her SVG antivirus on there, but then couldn't seem to log into LJ (she deleted all cookies, then said to accept all for LJ, but got the "you could not connect" screen. She says she could see other sites, as well as log into Gmail, but just not LJ). She then turned off her computer.
When she turned it back on, it went through the Dell start up screen, the Windows start up screen and the Windows progress bar, but when it gets to Windows, the screen goes blue-gray (the normal color, not Blue Screen of Death color), the cursor freezes, and that's it. She's left it on for a while and it's frozen like that, and she's turned it back on and off several times by using the power button. Ctrl+alt+delete, ctrl+shift+esc don't seem to work.
I asked her to close the screen to see if it'd go into standby, and it doesn't seem to. I also tried getting it into safe mode by pressing F8 while it was loading, but I think either it didn't work or it just missed the tiny window where it works.
Any ideas?
Oyce
So Rachel's computer seems to be fried... she says got the Spyware Protector virus, ran her SVG antivirus on there, but then couldn't seem to log into LJ (she deleted all cookies, then said to accept all for LJ, but got the "you could not connect" screen. She says she could see other sites, as well as log into Gmail, but just not LJ). She then turned off her computer.
When she turned it back on, it went through the Dell start up screen, the Windows start up screen and the Windows progress bar, but when it gets to Windows, the screen goes blue-gray (the normal color, not Blue Screen of Death color), the cursor freezes, and that's it. She's left it on for a while and it's frozen like that, and she's turned it back on and off several times by using the power button. Ctrl+alt+delete, ctrl+shift+esc don't seem to work.
I asked her to close the screen to see if it'd go into standby, and it doesn't seem to. I also tried getting it into safe mode by pressing F8 while it was loading, but I think either it didn't work or it just missed the tiny window where it works.
Any ideas?
Oyce
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(no subject)
Sun, Feb. 22nd, 2009 08:08 am (UTC)I think the problem just started today after the virus hit. Do you know if system restore works if Windows is not booting up properly? (as in, Task Manager won't come up, the Windows button doesn't do anything, and the mouse doesn't work, and the screen just stays blue.)
(no subject)
Sun, Feb. 22nd, 2009 07:38 pm (UTC)Fully powering down:
To make sure that the laptop's really powered down, she could try taking out the laptop's internal battery. It's not the external battery that you plug into an outlet. To get the internal battery, you have to flip over the laptop, and look at the bottom. Sometimes the battery location is labeled; sometimes you have to consult the laptop manual and look for a diagram. Take the internal battery out, wait for a couple of minutes, then put it back in.
Then start the computer.
Safe Mode:
If she can get to Safe Mode, then she can get to something like system restore for Windows XP. (There's also a Vista version of it.)
If that works, then run the computer on Safe Mode again, and then run an anti-virus program, or online anti-virus scanner like Microsoft's PC Protection, or McAfee. Follow directions, etc. A couple of years ago I had a bad virus on my computer, and this is how I deleted the infected files.
You have to do something like this, because the system restore point might still have the infected files. System restore only undoes changes back to a couple of days.
If that doesn't work, all I can figure out to do is reinstalling Windows (which will take the laptop back to the original factory settings), rebooting from a different operating system, or taking it into the shop. I don't know any intermediary steps between Safe Mode/system restore, and rebooting.