Boot virus and stuck at Verifying DMI?

[jduffy]

I use Avast and have good luck so far. Yesterday my Windows XP machine suddenly went to a black screen, then all sorts of characters appeared on the screen. I rebooted and the characters started up right away not giving a chance to boot up XP. I unplugged and then rebooted again, this time and every time I try to boot up I get stuck at Verifying DMI. I tried running recovery in console mode and when I run chkdsk I get an error message saying that the drive is corrupt.

I'm guessing that I have some kind of virus that trashed my MBR. I tried fixmbr and fixboot but I'm still stuck at the Verifying DMI screen.

Any ideas as to how I can fix my MBR and get back into Windows again? I'm guessing that I some how need to get a virus out but I have no idea what it is.

Thanks for any help you can offer.

[polonus]

Hi jduffy,

I have a hunch that you are confronted with a hardware problem, I don't know what the other here on the forum think, but it certainly sounds like it.

pol

[.: Mac :.]

Going along with wat polonus said, Have you added any new hardware recently? or updated any drivers?

[Lisandro]

I rebooted and the characters started up right away not giving a chance to boot up XP.
When I run chkdsk I get an error message saying that the drive is corrupt.
I'm guessing that I have some kind of virus that trashed my MBR.

If you're running the system, even in Safe Mode, your MBR should be ok... otherwise, you won't even boot.

I'm still stuck at the Verifying DMI screen.

And what happens after that? Can't you boot in Safe Mode?

[Lisandro]

Googling, I've found this:

MBRWork 1.07b 
MBRWork is a utility to perform some common and uncommon tasks to the MBR/EMBR/Sectors of a hard drive. It should only be used by power users who understand how computers work. The readme.txt file in the zip contains a list of the tasks available.
Updated 10/05/2002

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/downloads/MBRWORK.ZIP

Hope it helps...

[igor]

I'd advice against using such tools unless it's really needed... and this indeed sounds like a hardware problem, having nothing to do with a virus or MBR.

[Lisandro]

I'd advice against using such tools unless it's really needed... and this indeed sounds like a hardware problem, having nothing to do with a virus or MBR.

Me too... just in case of the user insists it is a MBR problem... which I think it's NOT.

If you're running the system, even in Safe Mode, your MBR should be ok... otherwise, you won't even boot.

[xistenz]

Try entering the BIOS as your computer starts - usually by pressing the "Delete" key.

Look for an option called S.M.A.R.T and enable it.

Reboot your computer and if you see a message on the screen saying "Replace disk. Imminent failure detected" or similar, your hard drive is nearly or already dead. Hope you backed up!