Black screen when trying to boot

[denimknight]

Hello all,

I'm having a big problem with my computers. It all started with my step sons laptop, he was on a website watching movies (I think it's an illegal site, but I don't know what the address is that for the site he was on), after him being on this site his laptop won't boot.
When you switch the laptop on it displays a black screen and doesn't do anything, there's sound of the hard drive or fan or anything. So I thought that the website was unrelated and that it was a hardware fault.
He then went onto my main machine (desktop) and visited the same website from there (argh!!!), now the desktop also won't boot and sits with a black screen.
It doesn't even get as far as displaying the usual BIOS messages.
I work in computers, but it's in the software side of things and I'm a little clueless when it comes to hardware.
Where's the best place for me to start with trying to fix the issue with the desktop machine?
Hope someone can help.
Thanks

Alex

 

[Noah11]

well if you didnt back up you files your in trouble. Google ZAR (Zero assumption recovery) that might help you out. Depending on your OS I would just re install it. If its windows 7 or below his computer has a little sticker on it with all the info you need for installing it (the "security code"). Then all you need is the windows install disk...

 

[denimknight]

Hi Noah,

thanks for getting back to me. I'm not worried about recovering files, I just want to get the computer working.

I've got a windows install disk, but it's not even getting to the point where it lets me boot to CD, it's not doing anything really. the power light comes on and the fans all spin, but the hard drive doesn't seem to be doing anything and the BIOS messages don't come up.

The entire machine just sits there with the fans going and the power light on. I've used my laptop with the monitor to make sure that it's working and it's displaying fine.

Really at a loss at what I should do.

Thanks

Alex

 

[Chicano]

denimknight...

Where I would start first is removing the Hard Drive, installing it on another computer (as the slave if IDE) and logon in Safe Mode to prevent a probable virus from spreading to the guest computer.. then scan the harddrive. If the antivirus doesn't work in safe mode, which sometimes happens, you could scan it with a portable antivirus or do an online virus scan in Safe Mode with Networking.

Another option and probably more convenient: Some antivirus have versions that can be run from a bootable CD or bootable USB pendrive... you could download one wherever you have access to another computer, burn it to a CD and take it home to scan both computers without having to remove the hard drive. To see what you're doing, remove the coin sized battery from the motherboard for some 10-15 minutes.. that will reset the BIOS and clear it from added settings, probably corrupted settings, and a possible virus infection that may be causing it to: stay silent, from displaying image, and possibly even from booting the system.