Hello,
Earlier today my laptop was taken out by a virus, possibly a parasite. There had been a few errors thoughout the day, my laptop is well maintained but I didnt think anything of the messages and I am usually capable of fixing a problem.
The browser crashed, and I shut the machine off, when it re-booted it went to safe mode. A window marked 'Windows Safe Mode' popped up after the log in screen, and it proclaimed that my hard drive had failed, and there was massive data loss etc..
I figured this was a ploy, so I tried the usual tricks to cicumnavigate the screen, but everything else has been disabled.
On doing some research there are a few people effected with this, and no one seems to have an answer.
People are generally not reading the problem and just suggesting futile pieces of software to install BUT only this virus screen can be seen. No task manager, no obvious way around, this is in and out of safe mode, with and without network access.
I can get to the command prompt via safemode, but I havent used DOS for well over a decade, and dont want to risk messing.
I have looked at the settings in the 'safe mode' where it has options like "dont activate on start up" but that didnt work, but I didnt expect it to. If you close the window, it just goes through the "must scan defective hdd" nonesense again.
I have considered an OS re-installation, but I am on vista, and dont have a CD as they seem to have stopped issuing them. And I am doubtful that will work, short of a full format.
Does anyone have any ideal solutions please? (That doesnt involve installing something)