A horrible virus wont let me reformat.

The computer shuts itself down... i can boot with the disk, but as soon as it loads the partitions where you can install or repair.. it turns off.

Ive never seen a computer shut itself off if you try to reformat the harddrive or use system restore or start it in safe mode!!!! Its crazy !!!!!

reply to post by Wertdagf


I understand now. Try that ultimate boot CD.

I can't offer any solutions that are as complex as has been suggested, but I'm wondering if you might try booting into Safe Mode and then running a anti-virus program to see what happens before you do anything more drastic.

It's unlikely that your BIOS is infected by a virus. If you really really suspect this maybe the case after your own investigation, just perform a CMOS pull reset and that should be the end of it. You will have to perform an update again though afterwards for the motherboard. The virus is much more likely to just be hiding around in the operating system. If i were you, I'd just grab DBAN (www.dban.org...) and burn it to disc. Set BIOS to boot from CD and just obliterate the thing. You don't really need to do the more sophisticated wipes, but it should get the job done.

Let me see if I can sum it up.

The computer does not let you enter the BIOS settings screen and it does not let you use the Windows disk to make a new installation.

If this is a virus that got itself into the BIOS, then pulling the BIOS battery out or using the reset jumper will not change things, it will only erase the BIOS settings and reloads the default settings.

Also, not all boards use a backup ROM with the BIOS code to reset the BIOS to its original version, so you have to check if that computer has that option.

Another thing that may explain this problem is a hardware fault, the disk or the controller may have some hardware problem that is creating all this situation.

Something I should have asked before, what is the model of that computer?

Uhm my two cents, before you go pulling the hard drive, or reformating remove the power battery and the cmos/bios battery let it sit, go have a smoke or a pop.

I don't know, but I don't think you can slave a laptop HD to a desk top. It's been a while since I messed with building an repair, I'm way behind the technological curve now.

Good luck keep us informed too

I can't add anything other than the others have, sadly. Good luck though.

I just wanted to say, wow. I didn't know there was any viruses that vicious in existence at the moment. You have any idea what the virus calls itself?