Virus or hard drive problem?

Adapazari

I Hope someone can help me please.

Almost a year ago I bought an Acer Aspire One D260-A. Intel Atom Processor N450 and 1GB Memory. Storage 160GB HDD.

For some reason I am now having problems starting up. Often I am left with a very dark blank screen when I switch on. I have to switch off at the on/off button and begin again. It then takes me to a black screen with white writing saying Windows is having a problem and gives me options of how to start up, safe mode etc., normally or using last successful method (this is the only option that seems to work).

Please can anyone tell me if they think this might be a result of some kind of virus or with the laptop itself? It's still under warranty, but I don't want to take it back if it's nothing to do with the hard drive/mechanics.

Advice will be gratefully appreciated.

Many thanks.

Kim

fwor

It's possibly one of several things, but I've seen these symptoms on a laptop where the hard drive is starting to fail.

I'm not sure if the version of Windows that you have allows you to view the SMART status of the drive, as this sometimes gives an indication of a HDD in the process of failing. If not, either download the diagnostic utility CD for your make of HDD, or boot the laptop from the latest version of Ubuntu LiveCD, as this has a Disk Utility that allows you to view SMART status and a whole load of other internal drive counters.

And if you are unsure whether it ~might~ be caused by a virus, follow the sticky at the top of this forum section to check that out.

Adapazari

Thanks for the advice. Will investigate.

moonrakerz

Would also suggest that you investigate the state of your hard drive with regards to how much stuff is on there.

Many of these small laptop HDDs will just save everything onto the "C" drive, the result is that the "D" drive (usually) is empty and the poor old "C" drive is struggling to run every programme and store every piece of data.

closed

backup your data and factory restore it

robmar0se

closed wrote: »

backup your data and factory restore it

Probably the best suggestion - the problem with netbooks is, without a DVD drive , one's options are limited. The hdd needs to be checked for errors first. Depending on the Acer recovery options, you may be able to run a chkdsk /r in their recovery mode. One would hope that the boot in recovery mode will give you a menu.

Otherwise I would remove the hdd, and as a slave on another PC, run tests on it as suggested above either chkdsk and/or the manufacturer's diagnostic tool. If you don't have one maybe a friend, you may need a spare sata data cable but they are only pennies.

As a slave on another PC you could also backup your data.

closed

if it has a factory restore partition, it's straighforward