Small smiley face on boot

[DnBvTacTicZz]

I'm not sure if this is serious but whenever i boot my computer it runs fine but pauses after the bios and a small grey smiley face appears in the top left of the screen. It doesn't stop me from booting just pauses it, I then have to press a key to continue booting. Should i be worried about this? I'm worried it may be a virus of some sort however i don't see any affect on my computer??? :S
Please help!!

 

[hedwar2011]

There was a boot sector virus years ago that did that. I would recommend downloading and running a Rescue Disk from either Kaspersky or if you have Norton then you already have one.

I would recommend running either MalwareBytes Anti-Malwarehttp://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_pro/http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_pro/ or Super Anti-Spywarehttp://www.superantispyware.com/http://www.superantispyware.com/ or even both after running the rescue disk scan.

 

[DnBvTacTicZz]

would a upgrade to a better windows 7 do the trick? as I have a a windows 7 ultimate that i am planning to upgrade to soon, if not i shall try your ideas! thank you for the fast reply!

 

[chugot9218]

If they are legitimate copies then yes, a format and install should do the trick, however, if they are illegitimate, they are likely the source of your virus in the first place.

And if that is the case which may be likely I should not even have told you in the first place!

 

[hedwar2011]

If they are legitimate copies then yes, a format and install should do the trick, however, if they are illegitimate, they are likely the source of your virus in the first place.

^^+1

 

[Fokissed]

would a upgrade to a better windows 7 do the trick? as I have a a windows 7 ultimate that i am planning to upgrade to soon, if not i shall try your ideas! thank you for the fast reply!

If it is a boot sector issue then yes, it will be fixed. A clean install wipes everything except your CMOS, which is VERY unlikely to be infected.

 

[DnBvTacTicZz]

okay thank you for the quick replies guys im going to try it now and hopefully fix it!

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic17258.html

Read this ^

 

[DnBvTacTicZz]

I managed to fix it by doing a clean install of my OS thanks guys!

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

It is usually a sign of a smithfraud virus variant.

 

[hedwar2011]

It is usually a sign of a smithfraud virus variant.

Funny, we were thinking along the same path. I was going to post that earlier but one of my kiddos got hurt.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

hedwar2011 _Thanks for all the help in the forum we appreciate that!!!!