is this a virus?

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February 26th, 2002, 08:07 PM
Jabberwocky

is this a virus?

hi everyone

i was working on a friends computer last night, randomly when he boots it he gets an "operating system not found" error. after messing with it for a little bit i got it to load windows, and i tried to defrag his hard drive but i got some strange errors. so i tried to format the hard drive, and a minute or two into the format it would tell me error, hard drive is changing.

i don't know what would make the hdd change during a defrag or format, could that be a virus? i suspect an mbr virus since it doesn't boot correctly occasionally. thanks in advance for the help!
February 26th, 2002, 08:14 PM
souleman

I have the same problem with one of my work machines. It comes back with the no OS found message after a cold boot (power down), but never after a warm boot (reset button). I believe it is a problem with the POST (Power On Startup Test), but I haven't gotten a chance to really look into it.

It doesn't appear to be a virus to me, because it does boot correctly, where as an mbr virus would normally kill your machine completely (until you fixed it).
February 26th, 2002, 08:15 PM
Dr Toker

was working on a friends computer last night, randomly when he boots it he gets an "operating system not found" error.

That error is prolly cause of the BIOS settings. Probley telling it to load off of the cd rom er somthin. Check the slaves and masters.

As far as the hard-drive contents have changed...i have no idea. I had this problem on my old pc.That harddrive is currently being used as a paper weight. tell me, did you install an old ass version of Norton AntiVirus? Thats what started my troubles. Wish I could help you more. I would like to know the answer to this as well.
February 26th, 2002, 08:32 PM
Conf1rm3d_K1ll

Re: is this a virus?

Quote:

Originally posted here by Jabberwocky
hi everyone

so i tried to format the hard drive, and a minute or two into the format it would tell me error, hard drive is changing.

Were you formatting from DOS?

Obviously the contents of your hard drive would change during a format. Thats the whole point of a format. It doesn't sound like viral activity to me. I use to get the EXACT same error message and after weeks of frustration it turned out to be a processor that was over heating...
February 26th, 2002, 08:33 PM
gold eagle

sometimes it may be a corrupted os loader. Recopy the file over from another box.