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7314
March 1st, 2009 18:00
Possible Virus? Cannot re-install windows....Any help or suggestions?
My grandfather's computer is having some major problems. I don't know if he did something, has a virus or anything else. He has a XPS400 and when it is turned on the desktop comes up as blue, green, red, and yellow blocks (appears to be a drawing from an art program or something). No icons come up and I cannot start the task manager. It says "task manage has been disabled by your administrator" but he is supposed to be the admin. So I decided to try to start it in safe mode, but unfortunately that led to the blue screen with the message ""A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to protect your computer. If this is your first time you've seen this stop error screen, restart your computer. If this appears again, follow these steps: Check for viruses on your computer. Remove any newly installed hard drives or hard drive controllers....ect. The technical information: ***Stop: 0x0000007B (oXF793B524, )x00000000..."and there is more, but I cannot see the rest of the numbers (off screen on my monitor--I brought it to my house).
So I decided..well why not just try to do a clean install of windows. However, this did not work either. When I did this, it says that there is not a hard disk found and it tells me to ensure everything is connected and to try again.
Now I am not sure what the next step should be. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!
sunfrog14
28 Posts
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March 1st, 2009 18:00
Wow! You just saved me a lot of time!!! Thank you sooo much. I was able to do the PCRestore. So far everything has come as it was supposed to. Do you know if the virus (he must have had one) would still be on here after the PCrestore?
keithg2
2 Intern
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935 Posts
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March 1st, 2009 18:00
It sounds to me like there may be a virus on it and a clean install is the best thing to do.
I know the XPS 400 has a hidden PCRestore partition and if you press CTRL+F11 at boot time before when you see the blue Dell stripe at the top of the screen, you should be able to restore to factory settings. If this does not work, then you will need to do a clean install.
I believe the issue you're having when trying to do a clean install is because the system is setup in RAID mode. Press F2 at boot time to get into your system setup and navigate to Drives/SATA Operation and select RAID/Autodetect ATA. This will "turn off" RAID and allow you to install Windows.
shesagordie
12 Elder
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46K Posts
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March 1st, 2009 20:00
sunfrog14
No, when Dell's PC Restore by Symantec utility is used, all the exsisting data/virus is removed and the hard drive is restored to it's factory condition.
Bev.
sunfrog14
28 Posts
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March 2nd, 2009 07:00
Thank you both for your help. How do you know which dell's have the PC Restore like that?
keithg2
2 Intern
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935 Posts
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March 2nd, 2009 08:00
I only know from my experience with the XPS 400 that CTRL+F11 restores the PC to factory OS, drivers and apps from Dell's factory. I don't know about the other models. My XPS 410 came with Vista installed and there's a different procedure to do the Restore. The owners manual of the model should state the factory restore procedures. The XPS 400's is on page 61.