Im trying to help out a friend, he has a Hp Pavillion 520n running Windows XP home edition, I think he may have got a virus, but may someone here can help. when windows xp loads and send me to the account sign in screen, i enter the proper password it starts loading the desktop for maybe 2 sec. and then loggs me off...... So i try every other way of booting , through safe mode debugging mode ect ect....., and still the same thing acures with both Administrator and user logins... my friend says he never recieved a operating systems disc when he bought it, but he's got some books,... welll thats about all i know can anyone help, this thing is driving me nuts.. Id appreciate anything, Thanks

asylum

here s a link for house call
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

and a online spyware scan
http://www.freespywarescan.org/

hope that helps SM

I don't think it's gonna do him any good, stereo, given the fact that he cannot even get the shell started...

Asylum--the only solution I can think of is to get an XP Home install disk and run system repair.

uh crud ,ok ty unholy- what about a system restore point?

heh yeah damn dood ok then if its the shell then maybe its new for a freshie!

get an XP disc but how would the disc start if i cant get passed the sign in screen will it automatically load even before i have access to anything?

change your bios to boot from the cd drive

if you can't get it to load windows and you need to get the data off you can get a linux live cd like knoppix or phlax and then burn the data to cd

Boot to the XP CD and start fresh. The first thing you install should be Norton or McAfee Internet Security.

Why people, still in this day and age, keep important data and windows on the same disk is beyond me.

Always have a secondary drive for your important data, or at the very least make
a partition on the boot drive dedicated for your important data. Then formatting
would be a more viable option in case something like this happens again.