[thechat] Help: Problem with PC

[Seb]

> I use iMesh file sharing program. Last night I was downloading a very 
> large
> file (about 17 MB). I set my PC to disconnect internet at 8:00 AM. At 
> about
> 7:30 AM, power supply of our area of the city failed. Then it came back
> after 2 to 3 minutes. My PC doesn't start automatically in this 
> situation.

Sounds like your hard disk failed due to the write head not fully 
disengaging.

> hardware, hard drive ran for some time and then everything hung. No beep 
> or
> no appearance on monitor! Everything black!

Yep, pretty much sounds like disk failure.

> I called my friend who has a bachelors degree in Computer Sciences. He 
> came
> and started the PC but no beep and no appearance on screen.
> I told him whole of the previous story. He said "some time bomb virus has
> activated and it has burnt PC's BIOS. Maybe, you'll not be able to 
> recover
> your C drive data at all".

Unlikely. Even if you totally screwed your bios chip, you'll still be able 
to recover your hard drive data by either replacing the bios chip or by 
replacing the motherboard. However, the chances of a "time-bomb virus" 
obliterating your bios are very, very small.

> Surprisingly, system turned on normally. I immediately launched AV, and 
> ran
> full system scan. After 20 minutes, while AV was scanning PC, screen 
> saver
> (setting: Blank Screen) appeared and PC became stuck. I restarted PC by
> pressing Restart button but same problem; no response, beep etc.
> I pressed the button repeatedly. Computer turned off. I pressed power 
> button
> and computer turned on normally.

If you can, get hold of Norton Utilities and run a full disk check, and get 
it to mark bad sectors as unusable. Windows scandisk is an awful piece of 
software, and barely of any use whatsoever.

You might find that the disk has been damaged on the boot sector, or 
windows system files have been damaged. In this case, you may well need to 
either repiar your windows system files (reinstalling can do this), repair 
the MBR (Reinstalling can do this), or if the damage appears unrecoverable, 
maybe replace your hard disk.

- seb


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