Here's a scenario you might encounter if you leave a USB drive plugged in to your computer and then restart. If booting via the USB drive is enabled in your BIOS for some reason, your computer might end up with a black screen with only a few letters at the bottom left corner of the screen. Mine was 9c and this may or may not be the same letters you see.
I tried removing the USB drive and restarting, but I ended up with the same screen. The computer won't even show the BIOS screen or the Windows startup screen. It goes directly to the 9c screen.
One way to reset the BIOS back to its default settings is to reseat (take out and then place back in) the CMOS battery on the motherboard. It's that silver circle which looks like an oversized watch battery. So if you're comfortable opening up your computer and you have access to the motherboard, you can try this solution.
I was able to reboot and see the BIOS screen after doing this. So I changed my BIOS settings so that booting via a USB drive is no longer viable. I will only enable this if I really need it, perhaps for troubleshooting purposes.
The USB drive was clean according to AVG anti-virus software, so I'm not sure if the USB drive was carrying a BIOS virus.
If you ever experience this, I hope reseating the CMOS battery will also work for you.
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