System Halted

ok this is what happened my brother downloaded a virus and we couldnt open any icons are program files. soo we rebooted the computer then everything was working fine. THen i heard about this Game Called tom clancy rainbow six. I have to admit i installed it. It was only for windows 95 or 98 it was kinda old. I wish i didnt install it but anyway then now when i turn on the computer it would say system Halted. or sometimes it would freeze when it get near the desktop. the System bar would freeze. or sometimes it would say Windows error. well then i decided to reboot it again. Then it would act the same way with system halted and stuff. I thinki corrupted some permanent files on my hard drive. or something like that what can i do? my friend said i should reformat the hard drive. how do i reformat the hard drive? i was thinking if i installed windows XP it would be fixed im not sure. what can i do !

 

Welcome to Windows BBS!

Out of curiosity, do you have System Restore activated on the box? If you do, read this page and see if you can restore to a point before you installed the game... and the virus.

Windows Me System Restore

If you get the box running, do a full system scan with the latest antivirus definitions. Rebooting doesn't get rid of viruses.

 

i already tried that..... thanks though its because i had already reboot it soo system restore was all deleted i should of try that option before. Any1 know how to reformat a harddrive on windows me?

 

You need a bootdisk.
Go to Bootdisk's. Doubleclick the downloaded file with a floppy in the drive and one will be created for you.
Boot up with it and type in these commands.
format c:
fdisk /mbr.
When installed get AVG AV for free.
Post back if/when you have problems with drivers.

 

i did that and it still dont work well im trying to get a new os system im not sure though. well i had reformatted my hard drive differently because i didnt read this post beofre i had got help from others. well i got my boot disk from the same place you told me then i made a disk. then i put the disk in and it had other options and the one i picked was 4. minimal boot soo then i type format c: then it formatted then at the end it froze so i restarted my computer then i had put in the recovery cd. and then the computer acted the same.

 

Your system froze while in dos mode?
You may have bad ram or a bad video card.
In either case going to XP is not going to help.
What was the name of this virus?

 

the name of my virus was a W32.YAHA.F@MM
well i dont know what to do now! i tried everything. formatted the hard drive, rebooted a million times. Should i just format the hard drive again and ADD A NEW OS man im soooo sad... this ***** anyways. how much do they charge like at best buy to fix computers. or anyone knows what is the average price for getting a computer fixed?

 

I agree that if the machine freezes in DOS then there are problems that a new OS will not fix.

Something to try .

Boot with the floppy and at the a:\ prompt type;

FDISK /MBR

BillyBob

 

well it didint actually freeze, well my friend said it did. which i probably dont belive well anyways my friend is getting me an XP cd soo i belive itshould work. well its worth a try. if it works i WILL write back and tell ya! but any other suggestions any1?