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Netbook won't start/virus related

amcl
Posts: 221 Forumite

in Techie Stuff
Over the past week my netbook had been running very slow and my internet pages kept being redirected etc. so i ran a virus check and sure enough found a trojan and virus on my netbook : ( i tried to quarentine all of these files until i could take it to pc world as i am a very untechnical and have very little idea when it comes to computers, but yesterday i shut my computer down seemingly as normal, but when i went to switch it on again it said something like "system error this application failed to initialise x0000005" and wouldnt start up. So ive taken it to PC world and they've basically said £30 to fix the problem and lose all my files, or £150 to fix it and save the files, so just wanted to ask for some advice really as to whether it sounds like its worth my going else where for a quote, because as im a student i don't really want to spend £150 seeing as fortunately none of my important work was on this netbook, but i will be upset to lose all my holiday photos that i hadn't got round to printing off yet and some coursework that i did last year that I had wanted to keep as a reference, or whether this sort of problem will be just as costly to fix whereever i go.
Apologies if my post has been too vague, i don't know much about computers and now the netbook won't even switch on i can't access the virus scan results to give a clearer explanation, but any advice at all would be really appreciated.
Apologies if my post has been too vague, i don't know much about computers and now the netbook won't even switch on i can't access the virus scan results to give a clearer explanation, but any advice at all would be really appreciated.
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Comments
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Nooooooo don't let the muppets at PCWorld anywhere near your computer!
If you really are clueless with computers, look in your local paper or yellow pages for a small computer shop or there are many "experts" now who advertise who will come out to you.
To save your data isn't hard. To get Windows back is slightly harder but still...an independent specialist should not charge you £150 to get everything back including your data!0 -
Nooooooo don't let the muppets at PCWorld anywhere near your computer!
If you really are clueless with computers, look in your local paper or yellow pages for a small computer shop or there are many "experts" now who advertise who will come out to you.
To save your data isn't hard. To get Windows back is slightly harder but still...an independent specialist should not charge you £150 to get everything back including your data!
Thanks that's given me hope! I shall have a look for independant places near me then, but you think the fact that it won't start up won't hinder their ability to save my files? (it begins the start-up process when you switch it on but gives the error message on a black screen before it completes).
Thanks a lot for your advice0 -
No, any half decent techie will either remove the drive and put it into an external USB caddy or boot off a bootable USB stick/CD-ROM and take the files off manually.
Depending on the fault, they may even be able to recover the operating system and make it work.
What you don't need is the PCWorld muppets let loose on your machine. I wouldn't trust them to catch a cold, let alone mess with my computer.0 -
buy yourself a usb 2.5" hard disk caddy (newish machines requires a sata caddy, older pata/ide), take the disk out insert into caddy, plug caddy into another machine via usb port, copy your files across, then either dig out the restore disk, or lookup in the manual (or manufacturers website) which key combination to press at bootup to restore factory settings, post your model here if you are stuck, 15 minutes later you will have a working machine.
Then install a better virus scanner than you had before.
Total cost of repair = £4 or so for the caddy.!!
> . !!!! ----> .0 -
try to boot it into safe mode:
press the on button and tap F8 again and again untill an 'advanced boot options' screen appears.
select safe mode, wait till it boots
then take your memory (external hard drive, big memory key) plug it in and then copy all your files from the computer to the external memory, unplug the drive.
then shut down the computer and restart it again tapping F8,
this time select factory reset, follow the instructions, this will nuke your files and the virus along with it, and your computer will be in the state when you first bought it,
reinstall some antivirus and your software, then plug in the external drive and copy all your files back onto the computer (keep the files on the external drive and take regular backups of your data)
(this will be the pcworld £30 way)
there you are you have saved £150
at least try the boot into safe mode to get your data, and then once you have the data you can move forward to the 2nd point.0
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