possible virus 1

[ange23299]

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I have a pop up that asks for password, will not load windows won't let me go to boot menu or bios. it is black screen with blue rectangle saying enter password. you can try it 3 times then shuts computer off. this computer never had a password for bios or even to windows. it is a friends computer it is satellite a135-s2386. i was just going to restore from disk but will not let me bypass password. He went on vacation left laptop home when he gets back turned it on and enter password pops up. he lives alone so no one had access.
please help

 

[sggaunt]

Do you see this immediately with no sign of windows boot screens? (white progress bar at the bottom of the screen, or flashes up Windows coloured loading screen, etc)

If so this is a BIOS Password prompt.
If you do see any sign of Windows first then It could be a virus. YOu can test this by attemping to start in safe mode, Press F8 durng boot.

If that dosnt work.

It may be that the battery is going then the BIOS could have become corrupted.

Enter the BIOS (Usually by pressing DEL during boot. and check to see if a password is set.
If you cannot get into the BIOS (ie the password box is shown), then there may be a link on the motherboard to rest the BIOS.
You can also reset the BIOS by removing the battery completely and replacing (with new one if that is suspect)
But don't forget this will loose your hard-drive and other settings, a modern machine will be able to re detect the drives automatically, but with an older machine you may have to search online for drive settings.


Steve: N.M.N.F.
If something is popular, it must be wrong: Mark Twain

 

[G0AOZ]

I would say that Steve's got the right idea. However, this is a laptop, and physically getting to the battery may not be very easy unless you're used to dismantling this kind of computer!

Here's what a link from the U.S. Toshiba site says about the problem...

http://askiris.toshiba.com/ToshibaS...iceId=&dialogID=54675622&stateId=0 0 54673645

ROGER - G0AOZ.

 

[sggaunt]

Roger: Wow it looks very much like the problem here.

But it looks like resetting the BIOS would not be a reliable fix anyway, or it might not even work.

Its hard to believe that Tosh didnt do a product recall on this one (perhaps they did but I never heard of one), and as for asking users to flash their own BIOS!
Who's gong to be liable if the flash doesn't take?



Steve: N.M.N.F.
If something is popular, it must be wrong: Mark Twain

 

[wahnula]

The good news...it will be fixed free of charge and there's plenty of shops. The bad news...look how many models MAY be affected and this problem is over one year old. I am also surprised that there was no recall, but that might have created the smell of fresh blood in the water and attracted the lawyers.

Personally, it makes me sick when I see a company getting class-actioned by some slimeball lawyers, sure they get some compensation for the victims but most of the money goes to THE *&^%$ LAWYERS. Toshiba should have contacted everyone that bought one of those notebooks from them and do the repair first rather than wait for it to happen and maybe the poor SOB isn't fortunate enough to know about this issue. This is a MAJOR flaw...good work Roger.

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[kjv1611]

Shew! The good news for me is that my model isn't on that list!

--

"If to err is human, then I must be some kind of human!" -Me