Windows Forum

Ask something
Discussion Locked

Windows won't start - Virus?

0 helpful
5 replies

by daddyman 1 view

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.

I have a friends laptop (W98). It won't boot - it ?sks "?nsert system disk and press enter key to reboot"
So I put in a startup disk and it tells me that it can't find a valid FAT or FAT32 partition and says that there could be one of 3 reasons.
1.Not partitioned (it was)
2.Using 3rd party partitioning S/W. (not using)
or 3. Could be a virus. I know she didn't have the def files updated for a while.

Anybody know how to work around this? Is there a way of scanning the now D:\ drive? (as C:\ is now the startup disk image)

I don't want to have to reformat it so any suggestions would be welcolme.

Cheers

DaddyMan

5 replies

by thechas

If you are POSITIVE that drive overlay software WAS not used to set up the hard drive;

Boot from the startup disk for the correct version of Windows.

Run fdisk /mbr

Run sys D:

If that does not bring things back, a virus may have wiped out the drive, and you will need to start over.

Chas

by tech_wiz03

Another way to tell if drive is toasted as in info all gone is to try and read d:\ after booting from floppy or from a c: partition.

regards
rick

by csmith

Start the laptop on a Antivirus floppy and scan.
The data on the hard drive is not lost, and the HD is probably OK. (Should have shown BIOS error if it could not talk to HD.)
Sounds like this virus has messed up the partition table.
Regards, Chris

This discussion is closed to new replies.