So my borrowed work pc crashed (wouldnt go beyond the 'DELL' page- just a black screen with a curser flashing (restarted about 10 times).
I went into a DOS screen and saw three partitions with various options, one was obviously the hard drive- another looked like the operating system and a third was 'temp' and a great deal smaller in size. I decided to delete this third one rather than 'repair' as I guessed it was a virus? I then ran some diagnostic tool and since the pc has loaded fine.
Did I do the right thing? Do I need to do anything else?
It's a work PC? If it broke I would call the support people.
You just deleted the daignostics partition... Nothing to do with a virus. Flashing cursor on boot is no boot device or current media not bootable. Usually it just means the bios is trying to boot off a usb device or your harddrive is on the way out. Back up your data and run diagnostics on your hard drive. 🙂
dmiller, I ran the diagnostics section after deleting that partition though. Its been fine (touch wood) since...
prettygreenparrot - its shut until the 4th!
Hora - good good - it may have been the restore partition then... sometimes the partitioning can be messy. Also your IT image may have created an extra partion for recovery. I dont think a virus would bother doing that these days...
What Dell is it? I'm guessing optiplex? If so what model? Still in warranty?
I would keep an eye on it for a while to be honest - unless you had a USB gizmo attatched at the time it was trying to boot from or tried to pxe boot it thats a worrying sign.
Defo keep your backups upto date and let your IT bods know on the 4th when they are back in - it may have a history of this already.
David.
Will do. The first sign of trouble was when the internet browsers started slowing down, then freezing. The firewall/virus protector is network dependent (I'm guessing) so once its taken off the network (I changed the settings for it to act like a home pc with no login etc) its basically unprotected now?
Sorry Im not very good with PC jargon- I tend to use common sense mixed in with a little Russian roulette and impatience 😆
The firewall/virus protector is network dependent (I'm guessing) so once its taken off the network (I changed the settings for it to act like a home pc with no login etc) its basically unprotected now?
I dont know - it should still work just not have the latest updates on it?
As for the lingo dont worry about. Just make it up - its what I do. 🙂