Computer (Windows XP) Problem

[daltore]

Personally, I would third the Linux LiveCD. If you don't know how to use Linux, I suggest learning at least enough to get around the graphical environment of Knoppix to be able to access your hard drive in case this kind of thing happens again. It is a very useful tool that can save you a HUGE amount of pain. Also good for accessing files on really old machines to which you don't remember the password! And if you have a hard drive that is physically damaged and the computer repair place can't get any data off of it, often times, Knoppix can! I had a dead 40 GB a few years ago, and the place couldn't copy the drive with their machine because it registered the drive as broken, so I took it home with a new drive and did it all on my computer without a single lost bit! Maybe something to do with the fact that I was only accessing a KB at a time (took about 12 hours for 15 gigs of data), but still.

[Trent B]

Few comments on the issue

Be wary of AVG as it seems to have a lot of false positives (I haven't experienced them but I have read about them) for example read the following as it is very recent
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/avg...oval,6587.html

Second, having linux live cds can be a life saver, even when I don't need them I use them to back up my harddrive, windows constantly creates errors when I back up my drives before reformatting because a file is currently being read, especially in the my documents folder, however in linux, you can just drag and drop the whole folder and sort out the mess of which files you need and don't need after you reformat.

Best of luck as windows installs gone wrong can be a complete and utter pain to fix.

TB

[dpeterson3]

I agree with them. Get the latest copy of Knoppix and a flash drive. You can transfer all your files off that way. Knoppix was designed to be Windows-user friendly. (In fact, it got me to make the permant switch). There is also some software out there called mlewarebytes that is supposed to get rid of just about any virus and is bootable (I've never tried it, only heard about it from my teacher). If neither one of those work, look into superGrub. It is the linux bootloader on a CD. I used it this morning to get my machine back in bootable state. It seems to work well. If nothing else, it might get you to the point you can force it to boot in safe mode. There are also a few tools (DSL) which you can install on a flash dive and boot if your BIOS supports it.

[matt91]

i would just delete everything, repartition the disk(s) and reinstall a fresh copy. If you need your software, you could always just reinstall it- most companies understand if you need a new serial # or activation code, just give them a call.