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Problems with a Laptop

Gamingphreek

Gamingphreek

Lifer
My mom got a Compaq Laptop soometime ago which uses a Mobile Duron 900mhz. It has 128mb of RAM shared with a 16 or 32mb S3 twisterK graphics card.

Recently my annoying sisters played games downloaded stuff, and generall screwed the computer up. We she has 4 trojans that i can neither find nor get rid of but are still there according to Norton AntiVirus Corporate Edition.

I finally shared enough of her drive to transfer he documents and things off her computer to my computer Via network. So then i said hell with this and slapped in the Windows XP disk to reload. Well its a slow machine so i got it started pressed f to format and start install process and walked away. I came back later there is no progress except a wonderful blue screen telling me that he HDD is damaged. Her computer has not been moved or anything so i find it hard to believe that there is any physical dmg. So i deleted the partition and created a new one, went to format it and got the exact same message.

Could one of those virus's have infected the boot sector or caused any real harm or is her HDD just hosed. Once again i find it hard to believe her HDD is gone because it was working fine it just needed a clean install of windows.

I would like to get this running for her tonight as she has a couple E-mails to send out.

Can anyone give any suggestions?

-Kevin

Yes i also posted in the tech support forum however i need responses... thx.
 
Maybe you should post this in "SFF, NOTEBOOKS, PRE-BUILT/BAREBONES PCS" or even "TECHNICAL SUPPORT". I doubt that any viruses would prevent you from doing a reformat...or at least I've never heard of this. It could actually be that the hd is physically messed up. Hard drives don't have to experience any shake or drop to break, sometimes they just go bad.

Also, this is a little irrelavant right now but I would suggest McAfee over Norton. I don't know exactly why but a bunch of CS guys I know tried explaining to me why because they knew how both operated.
 
Oh damn i never even bothered to look at that.... thanks.

I did put it in tech support anyways.

I dont know how the HDD could have gone bad it was working fine before i started the windows setup. It doesn't just quit like that.

Also we are using Norton Anti Virus Corportate Edition which the government (my dad works for the federal govt) gives him special governement editions meant for home use. So its the best thing out there.

-Kevin

Ill post this in Laptops also... thx
 
Norton really is one of the worst AV programs, since it is so widely used, it is usualy the target of viruses making it more difficult for norton to defend against them. Lol, just because the government uses it doesn't mean it's the best, since the government often goes for the better deal rather than what would actualy work better. As for the hard drive, it could possibly be a boot sector virus thats causing the install errors. If you have a boot disk, and can get to a command prompt, try doing a format /mbr, that will write a new boot record in case of a boot sector virus, and then you can try to install windows again.
 
or get a low level formatting tool or an equivalent tool from the hdd manufacturer's website...they should also have better disk analysis tools to check the drive for real physical damage.

now that the OS is hosed and u can't check the drive manufacturer from within the OS, you may have to open the thing up and check.

have a beer.
 
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