Dell Inspiron laptop fails during boot

[wvherdfan89]

I turn on the laptop, the dell symbol comes up, the bar fills across completely and goes to next screen as if its booting.  It gives me the screen with the info that usually shows for a few seconds just before loading Windows 7 (Intel UNDI, PXE ..... Patent numbers......Realtek......) and stops.  Cursor shows flashing at the top middle of the screen.  Ive went into F2 and F12, ran tests and everything is fine.  I tried to go into safe mode with F8 but it won't.  Almost like I am not pushing anything at all.  Any ideas?  This is my sons laptop and after it starts this he informs me his anti-virus program may have expired.  We can not locate the boot cd that came with the laptop although I found the driver cd.  Tried that and it didnt do anything, which I expected.   My other son has a Toshiba and the screen is completely black when booting and never shows anything.  I dont know if its a coincidence that both of these are having similar problems or if they have some sort of virus they have "shared" with each other.  Thanks for any help or suggestions you can give. 

[wvherdfan89]

Ive tried F8 fast, slow, holding, and still goes to the same screen and sits there.  Ugh!

[wvherdfan89]

Thanks for the suggestions 

[David H. Lipman]

I doubt the two notebooks have something in common and and you have a coincidence between the Dell Inspiron and the Toshiba.

 

Have you contacted Dell and Toshiba for Dell OS Installation or Recovery Disks ?

[wvherdfan89]

No I havent contacted either of them.   Both boys play World of Warcraft and Minecraft and I wondered if they picked up something from one of them.

[David H. Lipman]

Well I see you have started a new thread in the Malware Removal sub-forum; Dell Inspiron laptop freezes during boot and multiple threads for the same subject are not supported so you'll have to stick to that thread now.

 

BTW:  Computer viruses are malware so asking "Could this be malware or a virus?" is like asking "Could this be a BMW or an automobile?"

All viruses are malware while not all malware are viruses just as all BMWs are ¹automobiles while not all automobiles are BMWs.

 

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1.  With exception of motorcycles.

[CWB]

... and hondas

... and suzukis

 

as far as it goes ... it is possible to "pick up" *something* somewhere .

it may not be the gaming site in and of itself but rather the "trappings" and those persons associated with the game/site .

you might try doing a google search of "minecraft malware" and "world of warcraft malware" (or "wow malware") .