Can comp virus be transferred on memory?

Bret4207 · Nov 12, 2014

A couple months back my hard drive failed. Friend sold me another computer (used) that he had. He added my memory to that one. Yesterday that computer died int he same way the old one did, won't boot up. I;ve researched it a bot and am under the impression a virus can do this. Could the virus have been on my old memory and have transferred tot he newer computer?

I;m using SWMBO lap top. I HATE lap tops and DESPISE the Android tablet my daughter gave me to use.

Bob · Nov 12, 2014

IMHO, the internal memory that was transferred would be "volatile RAM", meaning all memory is lost when it's powered down, which it obviously was when transferred to the other 'puter.

RickieBlue · Nov 12, 2014

Bret............What type of antivirus are you
running?

MarkB_MI · Nov 12, 2014

I assume you mean you used the RAM from your old computer. (Today "RAM" is typically SDRAM, synchronous dynamic random access memory, but that's besides the point.) Random Access Memory is almost always volatile in desktop or laptop computers, meaning all data is lost when power is removed. (Tablets and cell phones typically use non-volatile memory.)

Also, it is quite difficult to make a virus which infects memory. Typically viruses infect either the boot sector of a storage device (e.g. a USB stick) or are imbedded in an executable program.

It is, however, quite possible your old memory is incompatible or marginally compatible with your new motherboard. Typically there are memory settings in the BIOS setup which need to be optimized for the particular brand and type of memory.

Does your PC get through its Power On Self Test (POST)? That will tell you if the memory is good or bad. You may have to go into your BIOS settings to disable "quick boot", as quick boot bypasses POST and just tries to boot Windows without running a memory check.

wisbaker · Nov 12, 2014

We had a bad nasty virus swept through the
county's computer system a few yeas ago. Every
time IS thought they had it gone it popped back
up, seems it was hiding in some memory in a
component, so yes it can but it's rare. Were were
down for almost 2 weeks until they figured out
what to unplug and leave off the network.

Bret4207 · Nov 12, 2014

It won't load the OS, XP in this case. Can't seem to get it to boot ins Safe Mode either. I had no mechanical indications the HD was going, no clicks and clacks and funny whirs. I think it's corrupted, just can't figure out how.

FWIW, I'm running AVG on all our systems and have had no issues with it that i know of, but I'm not a geek type.

Bret4207 · Nov 12, 2014

(quoted from post at 10:49:28 11/12/14)

Does your PC get through its Power On Self Test (POST)? That will tell you if the memory is good or bad. You may have to go into your BIOS settings to disable "quick boot", as quick boot bypasses POST and just tries to boot Windows without running a memory check.

I don't think it gets through the POST.

David G · Nov 12, 2014

I would bet you got it from the same place you got it from last time. Do you run antivirus software?

1130Leo · Nov 12, 2014

From Memory chip, no, from files copied to a thumb
drive and then back on your computer, maybe.
Memory chips (RAM) do not retain anything once
powered off. Likely just visited the same site
that got you the first time, if it is a virus.

MarkB_MI · Nov 12, 2014

Bret,

If it's not getting through POST, then it's not a virus. (Although BIOS virii are theoretically possible, in practice they're exceedingly rare.)

Your first chore will be to get into the BIOS settings and make sure "quick boot" or "fast boot" is disabled (which it should NEVER be enabled). You might have to go the website of the computer or motherboard manufacturer to figure out how to do this. Once quick boot is off, you can see how the POST is going. It may flag something bad in the memory or other hardware.

If you can get through POST and it fails to boot the operating system, I'd create a bootable CD or USB drive and see if it will boot to that. You may need to change the boot order in your BIOS so CD or USB is ahead of the normal boot device (typically C

.

For a bootable CD or USB, my preference is to burn a Linux "live CD". A good choice is Knoppix, which you can download at the link below. If your PC will boot at all, it will probably boot Knoppix.
Knoppix

Bret4207 · Nov 12, 2014

Thanks guys, sounds like a job outside my capabilities.

MarkB_MI · Nov 12, 2014

>Thanks guys, sounds like a job outside my capabilities

Bret, I don't understand why you think it's complicated. Either you figure out how to troubleshoot basic problems on your PC, or else you'll be buying a new one every year or two. Sure, certain problems can be very tough to nail down, but figuring out whether or not your computer can boot from a CD is pretty straightfoward.

Royse · Nov 12, 2014

"Although BIOS virii are theoretically possible, in practice they're exceedingly rare."

You got that right! (even the spelling LOL)
It is quite possible that the memory itself is bad though.
That would explain why it would cause two computers to fail.
It would also explain a failure to POST if that is the case.

Bret, can you describe what you see on the screen when you
try to turn it on? That may tell us if it is actually POST-ing.
Brand Logo? Dell, HP, Motherboard manufacturer etc?
Any beeps? Beep codes in a sequence indicate what is wrong.

Maybe the guy that switched it over has some spare memory
modules that he can swap in for a test. They just clip in.

Bret4207 · Nov 12, 2014

. Okay'I'm using the tablet that I hate- I got it to start a d hit F2 and DISABLED quick boot . What I have is CHKDSK stuck at stage 2/3 showing 6 entries saying Deleting an index entry from index $0 of file 25. It doesn.t seem to go any further.

Iknow this probably seems basic to you Mark but this way out of my experience. The pc is home built so I don't have clue on what's inn it. I don't have any cd to boot from or know how its done.

Royse · Nov 12, 2014

That does tell a story. In order for it to get that far it
has passed POST and the memory is at least working.
I would wager that it would boot fine from a CD if you had one.

CHKDSK is a Windows utility that is trying to test your hard
drive before it boots into Windows and it is not finishing.
From that limited info, I would guess it has a bad hard drive.
Since it was used when you got it, that's a good possibility.

If that's the case, your local guy may be able to save your pictures,
documents, etc from it. Programs will have to be loaded onto
a new one unfortunately unless you have a full system backup.

MarkB_MI · Nov 13, 2014

Bret, that's progress!

You now know it is getting through POST and it appears you have a bad disk. However, the disk problem may be a side effect of some other problem. If Windows can't complete its startup, it can leave the disk in a corrupted state. The next time Windows starts, it sees that the disk wasn't shut down clean and runs chkdsk to clean it up. Of course if it can't complete chkdsk because the drive is trashed or because of some other problem, that's as far as you can go.

The next step is to see if it will boot off some other media. There are a couple of different ways to do this. You can add a SATA CD/DVD burner, which will run about $40 and is a handy thing to have, or you can make a bootable USB thumb drive.

I can understand why at this point you would want to hand it over to somebody else, but I'm going to tell what my next steps would be in case you're interested. Assuming I can get it to boot off a Linux CD or USB thumbdrive, I would mount the bad hard drive and try to copy off any files I want to save. Then try to repair or reinstall the OS on the hard drive. If that fails, then a new drive and fresh installation is in order.

If the system won't boot from CD or USB, then there's some hardware problem besides the hard drive. But my guess is it will boot from a different media device just fine.

Bret4207 · Nov 13, 2014

Thsnkd for the help guys. I'm using the wifes laptop now. I have a couple questions-

What CD do I boot from? Windows XP? All I really want off the HD is my Firefox bookmarks, downloaded PDF files and maybe a few pictures. Fortunately I uploaded a mess of pics to Photobucket recently. I'd also like to get my Quicken files. Assuming I can get it to boot off a CD, how do I go about getting the files I want? I could do without the PDFs if I could at least copy down the names and locations I got them from.'

Part 2- Can you recommend a beginners guide/website for all this stuff? The nomenclature, the mechanics, etc? It does little good to tell me what someone else might do when I have no understanding of the process whatsoever. As far as I know these things run on magic pixie dust and green smoke. Yes, I can navigate Windows and fix simple software glitches, but as far as taking things apart, wiping drives, adding good stuff, I gots nuthin'.

Thanks again.

ETA- Mark, why do I never want a "Quick Boot" enabled?

MarkB_MI · Nov 13, 2014

Well, you can probably boot from just about any operating system CD or DVD. If you have an XP disk and XP is loaded on the PC, that will work. The main thing is that the hard disk format needs to be readable by the O/S version you're booting, which is why a Win 98 CD probably wouldn't work.

HOWEVER, my experience is when you boot from a Windows CD or DVD, you don't actually have a usable system. You probably won't have any networking, you may not have access to USB, you might just have a command-line DOS prompt. For this reason, I prefer to boot using a Linux "live" CD. Knoppix is sort of the standard for this purpose, although there are dozens of others. When you boot the Knoppix CD, you'll have a nice graphical user interface, networking will work and all your disk drives and USB devices are available. In other words, a working system.

You can make a bootable USB drive using the Knoppix ISO image (or pretty much any live CD). Google will help you out with that.

There are two reasons I don't like quick boot: First, it bypasses a lot of power-on self tests, which don't matter 99.9 percent of the time. But if you have a problem, POST can catch it before you boot the OS. The other reason I don't like it is that it's just additional aggravation if you need to boot to anything other than the normal boot disk.

MarkB_MI · Nov 13, 2014

I missed a few of your questions, so here's Part Deux.

The simplest way to get your files off the old disk is to copy them to a USB drive. So if you're booting from a USB thumbdrive, you'll probably need a second thumbdrive for the files. If networking is up, it's possible to copy the files over the network, but that's more complicated than using a thumbdrive.

If you go the Knoppix route, you'll have a graphical file manager you can use to select and copy files. I prefer to use UNIX commands (much simpler for me), but I've been working in UNIX for over twenty years. Note that Knoppix doesn't automatically mount your disk drive, you may have to right click on it to mount it. And the "C:" drive will show up as something line "/dev/sda1", but it will be a pretty obvious icon on the screen.

I know there are some books on this stuff, but it's been years since I've looked at any so I can't make any recommendations. The various "build your own PC" type books seem to be fairly good when it comes to explaining how the hardware works (or doesn't).

Bret4207 · Nov 13, 2014

thanks for the reply Mark. Sadly, most of what you wrote after, "HOWEVER..." int he 2nd para of the 1st post was just Greek to me, and I don't speak any Greek.

I guess I'm going to have to do some home work.

MarkB_MI · Nov 13, 2014

Bret, Google "knoppix windows recovery".

Bret4207 · Nov 13, 2014

Okay. i got ahold of the guy i got the computer from and he gave me the XP disc and a Linux Mint disc. Once he explained how the linux worked it made a lot more sense. I tried getting the XP to load but it keeps stalling or ahving an error and of course thats after an hour or more waiting on it. So now the Linux is in and I'm trying to figure out if it's doing anythign at all. I'm gonna go look into that right now.

Royse · Nov 13, 2014

(quoted from post at 19:47:17 11/13/14)
Okay. i got ahold of the guy i got the computer from and he gave me the XP disc and a Linux Mint disc. Once he explained how the linux worked it made a lot more sense. I tried getting the XP to load but it keeps stalling or ahving an error and of course thats after an hour or more waiting on it. So now the Linux is in and I'm trying to figure out if it's doing anythign at all. I'm gonna go look into that right now.

You just want to run Linux off the disk, not install it.
If you install it you will erase the things you want to save.
It will run right off the disk just like a regular computer albeit slower.

Bret4207 · Nov 13, 2014

Nope, they won't load, ether of them. Gonna drop it off and the guys going to replace the HD.

Can comp virus be transferred on memory?

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