Diagnosing virus and restoring system?

[ccajun4real]

Hello to all, I am new here and signed up in hopes that I could find someone with the expertise to assist me in identifying the problem with my HP XE3 notebook. Also need assistance in restoring the system should the machine have something that is repairable.

If someone with a good knowledge of this type of thing is willing to assist me I will post the specifics of the issue I have encountered.

The following are the symtoms in brief

Upon start up the screen is black with a string of letters and symbols. If I catch the sytem before it goes to the black screen with the line of characters I am able to go into the BIOS and can use the F1, F4, F10 keys to enter into the setup menus. Once the machine transitions to the black screen no matter what key I strike it simply returns and repeats the same string.

I can post the string of characters if it will help identify the issue? Thanks for any help in advance.

Cajun

 

[cell4me]

Can you boot into safemode? Start up the computer and hold down the F8 key and see if a menu comes up that will allow you to select safe mode.

If you cannot get past the screen you are talking about I think it might be a hardware failure or corrupt operating system.

Do you have your windows cd?

 

[ccajun4real]

Can you boot into safemode? Start up the computer and hold down the F8 key and see if a menu comes up that will allow you to select safe mode.

If you cannot get past the screen you are talking about I think it might be a hardware failure or corrupt operating system.

Do you have your windows cd?

I am unable to get it to respond using F8. It just beeps repeatedly as I push the button down. It then goes to the black screen with the string of characters.

How do I know whether it would be most prudent to have a computer doc take a look at it or just sell it on ebay for spare parts? I just dont want someone to be able to restore it and have any of the info on the hard drive. Thanks for the help

Cajun

 

[Mr.Cool]

It might be helpful to post the characters.

 

[cell4me]

It might be helpful to post the characters.

Yes do that.

 

[ccajun4real]

There are some characters that I can not type because they are on the keyboard. I am going to take a pic and post it on this thread. Thanks for the help with this guys.

Cajun

 

[ccajun4real]

Finally gave up and took the machine in to a computer doc. Seems I got a virus that wiped and disabled the hard drive. My CD ROM drive had not been working right for about a year so will have that done also.

The upside (if there is one) is that a new 40G HD, upgraded from 10G; a new CDR/ DVD drive, upgraded from CD ROM; and 256 RAM, upgraded from 128 and installation only cost me $240 with labor.

I guess it is worth it to upgrade the machine to something more useable. I wanted to thank you guys for all the help and give you the update.

Cajun