God damn lazy bastard machine!
OK, so my tower fell over on its arse last night. I am less than happy. Mostly, I am less than happy because I don’t really know what’s wrong with it; it isn’t connected to the Internet, or anything that isn’t itself, and yet it’s behaving awfully “Look at me with a virus!” like…
(Can you get a virus through a USB key?)
On the offchance it helps, the order of events was roughly:
1. JTA boots computer. All is well.
2. JTA launches C&C Generals. Plays about five minutes.
3. Generals terminates, shuts self down, accompanied by warning box from Windows to say it’s encountered a critical error.
4. Click ‘OK’. Computer restarts.
5. Windows returns. “Recovered from serious error” dialogue box. Click OK, don’t tell anyone (because how the Hell can it? It’s not wired to anything).
6. Computer restarts.
7. Windows loads. Waits five minutes. Restarts.
8. Ditto.
9. Windows starts to load, is displaying desktop. Explorer presumably loading (no toolbar or start menu yet). Computer restarts.
10. Attempt to start in safemode. Computer BSODs.
11. Worry.
12. Attempt to start in safemode. Computer tells me that “txtsetup.ini” is corrupt, startup cannot continue.
13. Manually restart machine.
14. Wait, whilst computer whirs and clicks and does nothing. Don’t even get a “no signal” message to monitor, it’s just firing black at me.
15. Repeat five times. Switch tower off at wall. Switch on again.
16. BIOS starts in “fail-safe mode.” Never seen that before. Getting worried now.
17. Discover BIOS fail-safe mode appears not to include support for USB keyboards. Can’t F8 into safemode.
18. Plug in proper keyboard via ATX – PS2 converter. Start safemode. Roll back to System Restore from Friday 14th September.
19. Computer restarts mid roll-back.
20. Repeat step 18. Computer crashes during restore, sits there half an hour. Manual restart, repeat step 16.
21. Turn on power at wall. Contrive roll-back to System Restore from Sunday 16th September.
22. Computer completes system restore, looks fine and happy.
23. JTA gets suspicious, waits ten minutes.
24. Computer restarts at random.
25. JTA leaves house to get bus to work.
…Seriously, I’m kinda stuck here. (All my live CDs and boot disks are in Norfolk, with Ruth (apart from some old ones, which are in Suffolk, which is just as useless.)
Not sure what can’ve happened to it; all I can think is that there’s a virus come in on my USB key, but I’ve just run that though Sophos here at work (because I dinnae want to infect the office PC, of course) and that’s come out clean… The only other thing I can think is that, when I cleaned up the Rev’s PC a while back, and got all her My Documents files off it (because that had a nasty virus) one of those files contained a virus itself. Word documents, a couple of spreadsheets and .jpgs of dead people from memorial service booklets, any of them likely to harbour a virus that waits two months and then goes off without you opening the files? Or is there just a mechanical failure in there?
…I was kinda relying on that PC to, pathetically, take my mind off how weird it is to be in the house whilst Ruth’s away (seriously, it’s not something that’s ever happened before in the year and a bit I’ve been here), so I’m vaguely strapped now.
No internet at home, either, because Ruth has the laptop.
Any ideas? (Just wondered, don’t really expect much… Might need someone to help me resurrect the damn thing once I get back to Aber, though. Any volunteers for that, either?)
*sigh*