Have you used AVG or other rescue disk?<br>Harold<br><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 7:52 PM, juanslayton @<a href="http://dslextreme.com">dslextreme.com</a> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:juanslayton@dslextreme.com">juanslayton@dslextreme.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">Could use a little advice myself; apologies for the length of the comment.<br><br>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.<br>
<br>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.<br>
<br>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.<br>
<br>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.<br>
<br>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.<br>
<br>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<br> the hard drive back into the laptop and tried to boot. No luck.<br>
<br>I'm left with 3 questions:<br>1) How can this virus hose the BIOS so one machine will not boot, and another appears to have a failed power supply.<br>2) Is there any way to revive my laptop, short of replacing the mother board?<br>
3) Any of you guys need a nearly new battery for an Acer Extensa 1000? <br>
</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><span>"poverty is violence against the oppressed</span>"<br><br>Harold Totten<br><a href="http://www.HaroldTotten.com" target="_blank">http://www.HaroldTotten.com</a><br>
Tujunga, California<br><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><br><div style="padding: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; overflow: hidden; word-wrap: break-word; color: black; font-size: 10px; text-align: left; line-height: 130%;">
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