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Is this a virus or....

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by dwilliamson

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I have a computer that does the POST fine, but at the time windows 98 starts to load, the screen goes black and characters start to appear all over the screen, if I try to boot from a floppy wit CD-ROM support all goes well untill it looks for Command.com. It is one of our sheriff computers (which we aren't supposed to supply virus software for but still have to support it) but all the info is critical. Any info someone has would be of great help. Thanks.

Derek Williamson
City of Norco

6 replies

by shanghai sam

yes this sounds like one of the older dos type or
an older word processor virus (rember the old ones are still on disks laying around)
I've revived a few. Some of the old dos virus will mutate when loaded into windows
so it probably is a virus. ( new or old )

it's probably on the boot sector of the hard disk
or in command.com
any good anti-virus program should remove it.

to check if the virus is in command.com
place this string in a config.sys file on your a boot disk.
shell=a:\command.com
this will force command.com to be loaded from a:
allways even if your in the root dir of c: (were win98 has it's copy)
If this work's just use the sys c:\ command to clear the virus from c:

PS> windows\command has the sys command and a spare copy of command.com
hope it help's

by francois.sardi

I would suggest you go see PandaSoftware.com . It's an antivirus software you put on a floppy disk. It might find something!

by scottsman

Before you start messing around with the boot sector and such I would suggest ghosting the drive over to a spare, or boot with a floppy and manually backup the "critical info" on your system. I also have seen similar being caused by a corruption of w98 and only solution is an overinstall. I would backup the drive first that antivirus, and if that doesnt work try an overinstall.

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