My sister seems to have a similar problem only the drive doesnt seem to work at all. It doesnt spin, doesnt do anything. When starting up her own computer she just gets a black screen with the blinking "underscore." You can't do anything here so i tried to hook her HDD up to my alternate computer with a docking station and everything fails; can't find the drive and it doesnt make any noise. So if i wanted to scan the drive i couldn't even do it. Is the logic board fried? and if so, if i replace it will it just burn out right away? that is before i am able to scan and get rid of this "virus" or do i even have this virus. i don't even know anymore. My sister is notorious for downloading some nasty virus' and i can't trust her when she says "my computer just randomly started making lots of noise and then stopped working." I ofc ask her if she downloaded anything and the answer was no >.> So... anyone that can help me out, thanks a lot.
the reason i'm posting here is because if there is any way i can simply get my computer to recognize and "see" the drive then i might be able to actually figure out whats wrong and hopefully fix it. My first thought was it was a hardware issue but it's only about 3 years old and that just seems too early... now that i read this it makes me think that there is a virus on it. maybe not the same one but either way... ugh! so what i need to know is, is it hardware or virus (or combo), and is there any way i can fix it?
edit: i also want to find out if theres anything wrong with the motherboard on her computer. i'm a newb but you can't run a computer w/o a hard drive right? and if i have to would it be safe for me to test my hard drive in her computer?