Restore Windows + Trojan + No Post in that order

[imahussey]

I'm really bummed out, I tried to help my sister out and restore her laptop to the original form. I started with burning the DVD's from the restore partition, then ran them to restore the laptop to it's original state. All was well then I ran all my windows updates, and put avast antivirus on it. The only internet usage was to microsoft, and avast websites. Updated avast then ran it. Went down stairs for a second and as I was coming back I heard avast go off saying "Trojan" and as I got within view I could see the word trojan flashing and poof, the the computer turned off. Now when I hit the power button I get nothing but three flashes from the AC led, no beaps no post, no fans.

I'm feeling like somehow their was a virus that got embedded on the restore partition, and when I burned the DVD's it planted itsself onto them, then onto the newly restored HD. I'm not even sure if this is possible, but sounds logical since I was only connected to the internet for 30 minutes or less, and only went to Microsoft to update the machine, and avast to put an anti virus on it.

Any help on what you might think the problem is or a fix would be great. I'm hoping the mobo isn't toast but I might be headed in that direction.

(other background info) The laptop was my sisters boyfriends who is an idiot when it comes to working on or with any computer. It had two anti-virus's on it an neither was up-to-date, plus it had a plethera of ad-ware and spyware, and I'm sure went to the darkest depths of the internet and back again before I got my hands on it.

Thanks

HP Pavilion dv2000
AMD Turion 64 x2
Windows XP

[Maulth]

I don't know of any virus that can prevent your computer from starting up, so it does indeed sound like a hardware problem. The only way that a virus could do that is if they had a direct connection to your computer, VNC or the like, and did something malicious, which doesn't sound too likely, A) You would have seen it upon entering the room, B) You were only connected for 30 min or less. If I were you, I would try a represenative from the company that makes your computer, and ask if their are any recalls, or known problems with any of the hardware, and go from there.
Best of luck.

[Driver_King]

The only explanation for this would probably be that this trojan could have overwhelmed your PC causing computer to put masses of stress onto your computer causing it to not be able to boot. Maybe the hardware was stressed so much that it overheated to the point where the power supply became no good. I'm just throwing that idea out. Maybe that'll give you an idea as to why it won't boot.

[imahussey]

I'm going to pull the CMOS battery later, and see if I can get at least to the BIOS screen. I was talking with some people I work with and maybe the virus was quarentined buy one of the anti-virus programs and when the system restore took place the virus was reinstalled on the system. (Although this still doesn't explain the imediate crash afterwards.) I just can't imagine that I could catch a virus in that short of a time frame, I mean I have a home network (router) and windows firewall was on at the time. So it must have been still on the partition or possibly on the restore discs I created. I just hope the mobo didn't fry.

PS I believe the PS is fine, as i'm getting an AC voltage LED. Although this is all that i'm getting at this time.

I will update in a couple hours.

[imahussey]

Here's the low down.
After pulling the CMOS battery and waiting for about 30 minutes, I reseeded the battery and as luck would have the computer booted back to where it left off, where it found the virus, and resumed running the virus scan. :-O

The Trojan that Avast found was Win32:Neptunia-KH[tri]
C:\Program Files\Music\inetchk.exe

After doing some googling I couldn't really find any definitive answers as to if this is a legit trojan or just some crappy software that comes with HP laptops. I'm leaning towards the crappy software.

Side note: doesn't that just eark you when you go and purchase a laptop and the idiot saleman just goes on about the dumpass software that comes "for free" that you will most likely want to delete so your computer runs like it should. Man I could go off on that.......

I sent an email to HP, doubt that they get back with me, but if they do, I will post more info about the Trojan, or crappy software.

[imahussey]

Here is the email I got back from HP. It appears that the virus is legit.

C:\program files\music\inetchk.exe is not any program bundled with your Notebook. Instead, it is the trojan virus and we recommend you to kill the process inetchk.exe and remove inetchk.exe from Windows startup. Running the inetchk.exe file can spread virus in your Notebook and it may damage or crash the data saved on your Notebook.

Therefore, I recommend you to remove the virus from your Notebook. For your convenience, I am providing you a Trojan removal tool. Please download and install this tool from the below listed web link:

http://www.greatis.com/appdata/d/i/inetchk.exe.htm

NOTE: The URL above will take you to a non HP Web site. HP does not control and is not responsible for information outside of the HP Web site.

I believe that the provided information will certainly help you. If the issue persists, please do write back to me with observations and results because it is important that I resolve your issue in a timely manner.

Sincerely,

Bernard
HP Total Care

[Auch]

so it was the trojan?