PC will not start

[Sean Bartleet]

Hi,

A friend has a PC that only starts 1 time in 20 and often shuts down for no
reason. He suspects that he has a virus. His wife saw a dialog that said
something about a virus. Is there a way that we can check for a virus
without starting windows? In the good old days you could boot off a floppy
disk and do a scan in DOS. Is there a way to start windows in a way that we
can check for viruses without the virus being activated.

What happens if I put his HDD in my PC and use on of these free on line
virus scanners? Can my PC become infected if I do not open any files on his
HDD, other than running a virus scan.

At the very least we would like to get his data off his HDD in case we have
to do a format and reinstall of the HDD.

Any suggestions will be appreciated.

Sean

 

[GSV Three Minds in a Can]

Hi,

A friend has a PC that only starts 1 time in 20 and often shuts down for no
reason.

When it 'doesn't start' how far does it get?

He suspects that he has a virus.

I suspect he has a hardware problem, although he may have a virus too.
What was he using for a virus checker and firewall?

His wife saw a dialog that said
something about a virus. Is there a way that we can check for a virus
without starting windows? In the good old days you could boot off a floppy
disk and do a scan in DOS. Is there a way to start windows in a way that we
can check for viruses without the virus being activated.

Safe mode is good.

www.google.com or groups.google.com is a good way to check 'state of the
art' and 'prior suggestions'.

Exactly what he can do depends on his OS and the file system being used.

What happens if I put his HDD in my PC and use on of these free on line
virus scanners? Can my PC become infected if I do not open any files on his
HDD, other than running a virus scan.

Depends on the OS and file system being used .. WinXP Pro with NTFS you
probably won't even be able to see most of the files, depending on how
permissions and access rights have been set.

At the very least we would like to get his data off his HDD in case we have
to do a format and reinstall of the HDD.

So what was his backup strategy?

Any suggestions will be appreciated.

www.google.com .. check out prior suggestions.