[SOLVED] This appeared on the screen of my mothers PC, should i be worried?

Solution
No problem and good luck. Ask them if it could be some sort of hardware virus, possibly bios and if possible to reflash from usb. They might even try this themselves.

Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator
I don't know if its a virus or not. It is odd

do you get the motherboard flash screen?

do you have a win 10 installer? handy boot drive - On another PC, download the Windows 10 media creation tool and use it to make a win 10 installer on USB

If you can access bios, see if you can boot off USB

you could boot off USB and use File explorer to see if all her stuff is okay, Also use to copy anything off PC -
boot from installer
on screen after languages, choose repair this pc, not install.
choose troubleshoot
choose advanced
choose command prompt
type notepad and press enter
in notepad, select file>open
Use file explorer to copy any files you need to save to USB or hdd
 
Feb 20, 2019
128
6
615
I don't know if its a virus or not. It is odd

do you get the motherboard flash screen?

do you have a win 10 installer? handy boot drive - On another PC, download the Windows 10 media creation tool and use it to make a win 10 installer on USB

If you can access bios, see if you can boot off USB

you could boot off USB and use File explorer to see if all her stuff is okay, Also use to copy anything off PC -
boot from installer
on screen after languages, choose repair this pc, not install.
choose troubleshoot
choose advanced
choose command prompt
type notepad and press enter
in notepad, select file>open
Use file explorer to copy any files you need to save to USB or hdd

i did get the motherboard boot, and i can access the bios settings for a brief moment. but when trying to boot to the drive that text appears.

I can try to boot to a USB tho. But surely no legit win code would include smiley faces and musical note symbols?
 

Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator
Did you try to boot off USB? or was that the drive you mean?

yes, I don't think that is windows. I have a suspicion its bios code of some kind.

its not efi shell as that still shows as letters.

i see if anyone else has seen it before?
 

Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator
Is your mums PC a brand name or custom? If brand name, what make/model? Is custom, what parts are inside?

See if you can boot off USB and see if its the same. Very least we can use cmd to run notepad and see if it can see the drives too.
 

boju

Titan
Ambassador
From bios i can see the drives. But if i run the setup from the drive where windows used to bee, that weird message will pop afterwards.

About 10 secs after i run the boot drive that appears

If you can, give some details about the computer that could help identify the motherboard. I'm imagining a bios virus, it might be possible to grab a bios rom file and reflash the bios via usb? and then reinstall Windows straight after. I'm only guessing it's a hardware level virus.
 
Feb 20, 2019
128
6
615
Is your mums PC a brand name or custom? If brand name, what make/model? Is custom, what parts are inside?

See if you can boot off USB and see if its the same. Very least we can use cmd to run notepad and see if it can see the drives too.

A custo
never seen a bios virus. I know they are out there so it would be a first.

how it reacts booting off a USB will tell us more perhaps.

Well we called a computer geek that fixes PC:s here. He said that the issue we had was a issue that he had heard before and never wanted to acutually stumble upon. So he took the pc for one day but maybe returning it today back. He said it might be gone for good now, since the issue the pc got was something he cant really fix...
 
Feb 20, 2019
128
6
615
If you can, give some details about the computer that could help identify the motherboard. I'm imagining a bios virus, it might be possible to grab a bios rom file and reflash the bios via usb? and then reinstall Windows straight after. I'm only guessing it's a hardware level virus.

I dont remember the specs, and i dont have the pc here anymore. Its at a repair shop, but even they said the issue us too complex and one that may nit be resolvable.

The pc is returning today or tomorrow, and he will tell us then what to doo...

He said he is not sure if he can get an understanding of what it is...

But ill continue in the thread when i get the pc and word back