Bacon
Member
Laptop: Dell Inspiron 1440
Model #: PP42L
Alright I got another laptop that needs fixing. Much bigger challenge then last time.. So she came over and admitted to downloading a bunch of games online for "free". So I'm already thinking viruses galore.
Now I went to load up the basics, Malwarebytes, SuperAntiSpyware, Hijackthis, AVG (she didn't have any antivirus loaded..). First thing I tried to install was Malwarebytes and it kept erroring and they were always different, I'm assuming a virus had corrupted some windows files. Next step was to run a full blown check disk over night and before going to bed I had noticed it was finding bad sectors almost immediately.
The next morning its all finished and sitting at the log in screen, so I log in expecting things to go smoothly and it BSODs.. Possibly faulty RAM? Ran memtest for a few hours and no problems, so I popped the hard drive out and shot some compressed air around, hoping the hard drive had come loose slightly.
Now I was able to get past log in, install a few things, run some scans (tons of viruses), but it started hanging on files and crashing again. I figured running another check disk might shed some light. Go figure it finds more bad sectors. I'm beginning to wonder if this is just a nasty virus or if the hard drive is starting to go.
After that check disk it hangs on "Please Wait" on the loading screen for login all the time, I've even tried leaving it over night and the screen ends up going black (power saving mode?) and never wakes up.
I'm not sure how to proceed.. Unhook the hard drive and hook it up to a working one, grab any files she wants and then reformat?
Edit: Started another check disk and its finding more bad clusters...
Model #: PP42L
Alright I got another laptop that needs fixing. Much bigger challenge then last time.. So she came over and admitted to downloading a bunch of games online for "free". So I'm already thinking viruses galore.
Now I went to load up the basics, Malwarebytes, SuperAntiSpyware, Hijackthis, AVG (she didn't have any antivirus loaded..). First thing I tried to install was Malwarebytes and it kept erroring and they were always different, I'm assuming a virus had corrupted some windows files. Next step was to run a full blown check disk over night and before going to bed I had noticed it was finding bad sectors almost immediately.
The next morning its all finished and sitting at the log in screen, so I log in expecting things to go smoothly and it BSODs.. Possibly faulty RAM? Ran memtest for a few hours and no problems, so I popped the hard drive out and shot some compressed air around, hoping the hard drive had come loose slightly.
Now I was able to get past log in, install a few things, run some scans (tons of viruses), but it started hanging on files and crashing again. I figured running another check disk might shed some light. Go figure it finds more bad sectors. I'm beginning to wonder if this is just a nasty virus or if the hard drive is starting to go.
After that check disk it hangs on "Please Wait" on the loading screen for login all the time, I've even tried leaving it over night and the screen ends up going black (power saving mode?) and never wakes up.
I'm not sure how to proceed.. Unhook the hard drive and hook it up to a working one, grab any files she wants and then reformat?
Edit: Started another check disk and its finding more bad clusters...
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