[mmichaels1970]

On the other hand, if he got a freshly loaded system, then the prior occurrence was probably unrelated.

True enough. I'm sort of assuming since he mentioned a motherboard replacement and not a hard disk replacement, that this didn't occur.

I'd say I'm still sort of surprised if it didn't. I've seen many occasions where the "repair guys" didn't want to deal with malware removal, so it was easier to just tell the customer that the hard drive was fried and replace it.

[the_Watchman]

Warranty replacements will many times NOT preserve your hard drive. They find it easier to throw a new machine at you.

[Blogger]

system did have malware.

Gone now. Didn’t know eset wouldn’t protect from that.