Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!botter!klipper!beugel
From: beugel@cs.vu.nl (Beugel BJ)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Weird PC error messages
Message-ID: <978@klipper.cs.vu.nl>
Date: 27 Jan 88 16:05:40 GMT
References: <3237@sphinx.uchicago.edu> <676@silver.bacs.indiana.edu>
Reply-To: beugel@cs.vu.nl (Beugel BJ)
Organization: VU Informatica, Amsterdam
Lines: 21
Summary:

Expires:

Sender:

Followup-To:

Distribution:

Keywords:


In article <676@silver.bacs.indiana.edu> creps@silver.UUCP (Steve Creps) writes:
>In article <3237@sphinx.uchicago.edu> cjdb@sphinx.uchicago.edu (Charles Blair) writes:
>>On booting an IBM PC I get the following error message:
>>SYSTEM ERROR
>>982734 [or 45698]
>>ALL FILES WILL BE EXPUNGED ...
>>GOODBYE
>
>   Sounds like somebody's playing a joke on you.

Sounds very likely indeed. I personally know of a program that
displays weird error messages like "CPU overheated. Please
wait" or "Clock battery low. Please recharge." The program
manifested itself at random time-intervals after you had typed
a DOS-command. It used to upset quite a few secretaries at a
university here in Holland. This one was started from the
AUTOEXEC.BAT file so switching off the computer might not help.
Check your AUTOEXEC.BAT file and any other .BAT files for
suspicious commands.

Berend Jan Beugel (beugel@cs.vu.nl).