A couple of hours ago my computer was at its desktop. I walked away and when I came back, there was a message window that said something along the lines of "there's a problem with your hardware, please restart your machine...". I restarted and then got the following window while rebooting:
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Pressing F12 or F1 did nothing. I CTRL+ALT+DEL and repeatedly tapped the F12 key and that did nothing but took me back to the above window. I CTRL+ALT+DEL again and repeatedly tapped the F2 key which took me into the BIOS. I poked around and found nothing out of the ordinary and ESC without saving. This allowed me to go and login to windows. I went to the Dell website (I have a Dell PC) and ran a quick diagnostic through their website since I couldn't do it at reboot. The diagnostic came back fine except for FAIL for the SMART THRESHOLDS and then suggested that I replace my 250gb hard drive. The problem here is that I don't have a 250gb HD, I have a 1.5tb HD of a different model.
I called Dell and the tech told me that they've been receiving a number of calls regarding the same thing and that it's a virus. According to him, it's one of those viruses that even Norton can't find (I have the full Norton suite.) He wanted to tap into my computer to remove it. Since my PC is no longer under warranty, he said Dell would charge about $130 to remove it or I would have to reformat the hard drive to get rid of it. Little does he know that I'm a master reformatter. LOL
So do you think that if I reformat the HDD everything will clear up? I have a full backup of my stuff and it is overdue for some "spring cleaning".
Pressing F12 or F1 did nothing. I CTRL+ALT+DEL and repeatedly tapped the F12 key and that did nothing but took me back to the above window. I CTRL+ALT+DEL again and repeatedly tapped the F2 key which took me into the BIOS. I poked around and found nothing out of the ordinary and ESC without saving. This allowed me to go and login to windows. I went to the Dell website (I have a Dell PC) and ran a quick diagnostic through their website since I couldn't do it at reboot. The diagnostic came back fine except for FAIL for the SMART THRESHOLDS and then suggested that I replace my 250gb hard drive. The problem here is that I don't have a 250gb HD, I have a 1.5tb HD of a different model.
I called Dell and the tech told me that they've been receiving a number of calls regarding the same thing and that it's a virus. According to him, it's one of those viruses that even Norton can't find (I have the full Norton suite.) He wanted to tap into my computer to remove it. Since my PC is no longer under warranty, he said Dell would charge about $130 to remove it or I would have to reformat the hard drive to get rid of it. Little does he know that I'm a master reformatter. LOL
So do you think that if I reformat the HDD everything will clear up? I have a full backup of my stuff and it is overdue for some "spring cleaning".