[SGVLUG] AV Guard Virus

[juanslayton @dslextreme.com]

Could use a little advice myself; apologies for the length of the comment.

On Tuesday, October 4, I used my Linux machine (Fedora 13 or 14) for various
things, including bumbling around the suspect site (which I will refrain
from naming).  Closed down the machine in good condition, and drove to
Arizona the next day.

Used Mom's computer (Windows XP) for various things, including visiting the
suspect site and using a link there to forward material to a friend in
Stockton (also running Windows).  Left the machine running for a while, and
when I came back, found the screen frozen.  Rebooted manually and found a
display "AV Guard," purporting to be an anti-virus program that had
identified malware on our system that it could remove (for a fee).  Of
course, AV Guard is itself a virus.

And a fairly sophisticated one, I should say.  It not only blocked
anti-virus programming resident in the computer; it also redirected my
attempts to download anti-malware on line.  It repeatedly froze the machine,
until ultimately it simply refused to boot at all.  No response to the power
switch, just a blinking green led on the power supply.  We sent that machine
back to the store; I haven't yet heard the outcome.

Of course we called our friends in Stockton and warned them not to download
our e-mail.  Too late, they were already dealing with the AV Guard.  After
our warning, they took it to a local pro, who removed it for about $45.
Well, those were Windows machines, we expect that kind of vulnerability from
Redmond.  I run Linux, should have little to worry about.

Guess again.  Drove back to Azusa, got home Friday night.  And my Linux box,
which was working perfectly when I shut it down on Tuesday, refused to
boot.  It would spin up for a few seconds, then immediately shut down,
before even getting a screen display.  It would not boot with installation
disks from Slackware, Ubuntu, or Fedora.  Would not boot with live Fedora.
Tried to boot with live Ubuntu and managed to get a few lines of text before
the screen froze.

So I pulled the hard drive (this was on my laptop), stuck it in my desktop,
saved important files on a memory stick, and did a clean installation of
Ubuntu.  Put
 the hard drive back into the laptop and tried to boot.  No luck.

I'm left with 3 questions:
1)  How can this virus hose the BIOS so one machine will not boot, and
another appears to have a failed power supply.
2)  Is there any way to revive my laptop, short of replacing the mother
board?
3)  Any of you guys need a nearly new battery for an Acer Extensa 1000?
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