Is this a virus?

We have a PC running Windows 95 (because of some very old apps that
need to keep running). It is on a small network, behind a firewall.
There is supposedly no access to the outside from this computer and
the outside certainly cannot see it. We do not normally use IE or any
Windows-based software on that machine that talks to the outside
world. Any such connection is done via Xwindowing to a linux machine
which does the talking to the outside world from other hardware.

For no apparent reason (while nobody was using it) it suddenly went
from correctly working desktop to a Windows Network login screen. It
had seemingly rebooted itself. When I logged it in, it proceeded for
just a little while and then put up a white box with black text that
stated [don't recall all the text] ".... must reinstall Window."
NOTE: that is "Window", not "Windows". The misspelling got me
thinking that it was a virus.

Reboot attempts got worse and worse with serious file damage and
degradation; scandisk finding all sorts of problems each time
including FAT problems. Eventually scandisk itself could not even be
found.

On one attempt, to Safe Mode, it DID boot up and let me start a virus
scan. While it was scanning, I checked IE to see a) if there was any
IE history showing and b) if the history showed any inappropriate
activity. The IE history was present, but only showed LOCAL and
proper activity -- and even that was very, very old. In other words
no recent activity to www.VirusSite.com. In any case, a couple minutes
later, I got the blue screen of death. After that, all attempts to
restart Windows (Safe Mode) end halfway through the process by going
directly to "It is safe to turn off your computer" without any error
messages.

Does anything about this sound like a virus? Especially the "....
must reinstall Window."

Thanks.

Jay

Thanks Virus Guy. That actually makes me feel a little better. I am
more concerned about security than the mechanical. Yes, I can
replicate the contents of the drive, but it is a pain.

The thought of pulling the drive and putting it on as a nth drive on
another machine did cross my mind. However, Win95 is so prone to
crashes for any reason or no reaon that I figured it was just another
one of those annoying incidences.

The time when it did boot up in safe mode was after the machine had
been off for a couple hours; that fits perfectly with your theory.
Perhaps I can cool it down enough (is it safe to refrigerate a drive?)
to run it long enough to pull some stuff off it (that would take less
time than rebuidling from what I can replicate).

We do actually do exactly as you describe with the airflow except that
each drive carrier has its own fan in addition. However, I have never
had one run "cool". If I remember correctly, these are 8000 or 8500
RPM drives and they have always been hot. I have another machine
(linux) that has SIX 10,000 RPM drives and they are really hot.

Thanks.

Jay