Virus Authors, I hate you

I was browsing the internet to a see if there was an option to run Civilization V without a DVD, since I hate having to put one in to my laptop if I want to play.

I search Google, see a likely site, and go to it.

I get to the site and I see some things that look like text links, but nothing is active. So, I start to go back to Google, and I get an error message from Adobe Reader saying it couldn't read the PDF I was trying to open.

"Huh, " I say to myself, "I didn't click on any PDFs. I'll just close that window. Hmm, now I'm getting a bunch of Virus infection notifications from some virus software I didn't install. Oh, CRAP!"

At this point I'm getting pretty worried, so I power down the system to stop the spread of what ever evil has traveled down the Inter-tubes to my poor, innocent laptop. I figure I'll just build the AVG Rescue environment on my USB key to scan and clean my infested laptop and go about my merry way.

I boot up the USB stick with no issue, and start a scan. About 1 min in, the laptop just shuts down.

I try again, same thing.

I try a few options thinking it is some kind of issue with the Linux environment the rescue stick uses. Same thing.

I boot into MemTest and start it running. Same thing.

At this point, I start to wonder if it has infected BIOS. So, I build a BIOS flash CD and boot that up. Of course, part way through the process, the system reboots.

It is at this point I begin to get really worried as a failed BIOS update usually means a bricked system. I power up the laptop again and, sure enough, no video, post or anything. I have a very expensive paperweight, or so I think.

I open up the laptop and try to search for anything that might resemble a BIOS chip and find not much of anything useful. I do see a label for something called Insyde H2O, and a quick Google leads me to some information that my laptop isn't using traditional BIOS, but a successor to BIOS called EFI.

Now, like a lot of folks, I _hate_ to call tech support. I consider myself a fairly technical person, but it was starting to look like I might have a long saga ahead of me. In a last ditch effort, I search Google for recovering bricked Insyde EFI for my poor Toshiba L305D.

After some digging, I stumble upon a forum post at The Elder Geek web site that seems very interesting. It seemed there was some folks who had found a way to reload the Insyde EFI via some magical incantations, and keyboard gesticulations. I followed the last entry of that post, except that I was able to use my USB stick, to which I copied the FD file from the extracted BIOS update I was trying to run, and called it BIOS.FD on the stick. I then held down the Fn-F chord, plugged in the stick, plugged in the laptop, and powered it on. After waiting about 10 seconds, I released the keys, and I saw the scroll lock indicator on the keyboard light up.

I then waited for a few minutes, and the system then shut itself down. I crossed my fingers, and powered it back up. And, incredibly, this process WORKED! I was able to see the Toshiba boot screen, and get back into the setup screens!

Thank you CarlosAG on The Elder Geek forums. You saved _this_ geek from the purgatory of tech support!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Using Snapshot Isolation with SQL Server and Hibernate

FreeNAS, CIFS, and user login problems

Official Pandora Desktop and Hotkey Support?