screen blank with blinking cursor

I have a Presario laptop windows vista home. I opened an e mail I thought was from my daughter; clicked on a link and to make a long story short after clearing windows ok and run, my screen went blank with a cursor blinking in upper left corner.

Tried rebooting in safe mode and will not allow. Just ran Primary Hard Disk self test in Bios setup utility and got a test status #2- 07 Fail..

Help!!!

Here is the link I clicked that caused the screen to go blank on minus me2u.exe so it won't work. Anyone heard of this link?

http://rapidshare.com/files/425025138

I'd suggest trying the hard drive test from the following canned speech. It sounds like your test has failed the hard drive and it will most likely need to be replaced (and you'll need recovery disks to reinstall Windows). How to get recovery disks (in the USA) if you don't have them: Order Recovery Discs (USA)

I suggest starting all troubleshooting with the following diagnostic tests. They'll save you a lot of time and heartache if there is a hardware failure, and you'll have the disks on hand in case you need them in the future:

H/W Diagnostics:
Please start by running these bootable hardware diagnostics:
Memory Diagnostics (read the details at the link)
HD Diagnostic (read the details at the link)

Also, please run one of these free, independent online malware scans to ensure that your current protection hasn't been compromised: Malware (read the details at the link)

Click to expand...

Thanks for the help. Unfortunately the only screen I can access is the PhoenixBIOS Utility screen. That's where I ran the diagnostics test and got the #2 F7 fail notice. So I can't run anything. If it was my hard drive why do I have access to the Bios Utility screen? Like I said before I opened that above link from the alleged e mail from my daughter who confirms she never sent it and that's when my screen went blank with the cursor blinking. I think I have a virus.. Any suggestions??

The system loads the BIOS before it starts in on the rest of the hardware.
And the diagnostics load from there (or by booting from a CD) - and they say the hard drive is bad.

If you can't even access the boot menu (to boot from a CD to run diagnostics like I suggested), then there's more of a problem than just a virus (you may have a virus and a failing hard drive also). And, since you can't boot from a CD, you won't be able to load any virus removal tools to try and remove any viruses.

But there are two things to consider -
- if you can't boot to a diagnostic disk and can't boot to Windows - how are you going to get into the system to remove said viruses?
- and, if the hard drive is defective, then the virus isn't a factor because installing a new hard drive (and Windows on it) will remove the virus laden hard drive from the system.

FWIW - fairly frequently at work we run into hard drive problems like this. The hard drive is messed up enough that it interferes with the rest of the system. The "test" for this is to remove the hard drive and see if you can run the other diagnostics from the CD drive.

You have a virus. I administer the Ironport Email Security Appliance for a large company. Currently my appliance is quarantining emails with the link you provided above as an Outbreak filter. An Outbreak filter is a filter that Cisco will push to my Ironport to protect me from these emails prior to the AV companies pushing virus defs to catch these messages.

1. Pull your hard drive.
2. Wait a day or two.
3. Connect that hard drive as an external drive or slave and scan with another computer with updated virus defs.

Darnit, I knew it was a virus. Usama posted he thought I might have a hard drive problem but the drive was running perfectly until I opened that link. I guess there is a chance my drive went bad simultaneously but don't think it is likely..

How hard is it to pull the drive and run it as an external and scan? I am using Avira currently. It sure didn't catch this virus. Any suggestions on what anti virus program to use?

BTW, why do I need to wait a day or two? and..
What type of a virus is this?

I was figuring wait a day so the computer you will use to scan has the updated virus defs. I don't know what kind of virus it is, we are quarantining the messages, you may find out something later in the week if you do some research. Go ahead, give it a shot, pull the drive, connect it to another PC and do a scan. Who knows, it may find what you’re looking for.
I'm guessing if all you are getting is the blank screen and the blinking cursor, even if a virus is found and removed you may still have trouble booting. It sounds to me like the Boot Configuration Data (BCD) file has been edited/removed or corrupt. This is the equivalent to the boot.ini in earlier versions of Windows.

At this point i am thinking:

a. get an external hard drive and take it to someone to transfer the files I want.

The laptop is 4 years old. I love it but just want my records at this point. As I understand it I can likely transfer the files I want from this hard drive.

I guess I better run a scan of those transferred files to ensure I don't transfer this virus to the external right?

Thanks again..

Run a scan on the whole drive, transfer your files to the other PC so you have a good backup and put it back in your laptop. It might boot, it might not. What have you got to lose? If it doesn't boot, I would look into the Boot Config Data file. It's not like you can break it more, it's already broken. If you don't care and sure you have all your data, reinstall windows.

I would be very p....Off if you brought an infected drive to my place and asked me to scan it for you. Don't take it to a friend, take it to someone who does that sort of thing all the time, or your friend may be joining your thread.

Never said I was taking the disk to "a friend".

I just ran windows repair recovery disk and it found "nothing to repair" Boy this is a nasty virus. I can't believe I'm the only one with this rapidshare virus??

Same thing happened to me. I am running Windows 7 and was fixing a friends laptop. I visited a tech forum and was reading about the issue and then, stupidly, clicked on a link. Microsoft Security Essectials popped up and said I had a virus. I clicked the button to remove it and the screen went blank. Every time I try to reboot it goes through the Dell screen and then straight to a blank screen with a blinking cursor. I had a Sata to USB converter, so I hooked my drive up to another computer and was able to see everything so I know the drive is good, or at least good enough to get a backup. I am currently scanning it for viruses. I will let you know how it turns out.

Is there a way to manually edit the Master boot record?