WINDOWS WON'T START...

I thought I would bring this to someone's attention before I did something
stupid--again.

I'm going to talk with my I.T. supervisor at my school later Monday afternoon.

It started Saturday night... I downloaded a file and scanned it first after
it downloaded it with my anti-virus software. It was in a .rar folder, so
when I saw that there were no errors, I opened the .rar folder and clicked on
the file itself and scanned it again. Nothing. No errors, viruses, or
malware. So I thought, at least.

I opened it and everything seemed fine. Then my FireFox started to receive
errors as did my internet explorer and my anti-virus program. I can't open
FireFox anymore, nor can I open my anti virus software so I can properly scan
my system.

Also, my system (CPU) runs at %100 all the time, according to my task
manager. So when I click on something, it takes forever for it to open up.

Maybe this was stupid of me, but I decided it would be best to start the
computer in safe mode in an attempt to use the anti-virus software.

Now, only the prompt comes up saying that an error has occurred. It gave me
options to start windows normally or to start in safe mode--but no dice. I
won't let me do either now. Or anything else--after 30 seconds, it restarts,
and it does it over again. :/

What in blazes happen? Is there anything I can do?

Now, I can do an non-destructive system recovery, but I'm afraid another
"error" will occur and then I'm really screwed. All my pictures, word files
and videos will go up and smoke--it's happened before. I didn't have a
chance to back-up everything properly either. Which was idiotic and I deeply
regret it.

Should I proceed with the non-destructive system recovery? If it's
successful, I will still have all my files.



Stuck & Worried,
Pikey

If you're going to see your IT supervisor soon you may as well save your
question for her or him. The only thing you've told us is that you
downloaded a .rar archive. That's not nearly enough for someone to even
guess what happened to your computer.

---
Leonard Grey
Errare humanum est

Pikey wrote:
> I thought I would bring this to someone's attention before I did something
> stupid--again.
>
> I'm going to talk with my I.T. supervisor at my school later Monday afternoon.
>
> It started Saturday night... I downloaded a file and scanned it first after
> it downloaded it with my anti-virus software. It was in a .rar folder, so
> when I saw that there were no errors, I opened the .rar folder and clicked on
> the file itself and scanned it again. Nothing. No errors, viruses, or
> malware. So I thought, at least.
>
> I opened it and everything seemed fine. Then my FireFox started to receive
> errors as did my internet explorer and my anti-virus program. I can't open
> FireFox anymore, nor can I open my anti virus software so I can properly scan
> my system.
>
> Also, my system (CPU) runs at %100 all the time, according to my task
> manager. So when I click on something, it takes forever for it to open up.
>
> Maybe this was stupid of me, but I decided it would be best to start the
> computer in safe mode in an attempt to use the anti-virus software.
>
> Now, only the prompt comes up saying that an error has occurred. It gave me
> options to start windows normally or to start in safe mode--but no dice. I
> won't let me do either now. Or anything else--after 30 seconds, it restarts,
> and it does it over again. :/
>
> What in blazes happen? Is there anything I can do?
>
> Now, I can do an non-destructive system recovery, but I'm afraid another
> "error" will occur and then I'm really screwed. All my pictures, word files
> and videos will go up and smoke--it's happened before. I didn't have a
> chance to back-up everything properly either. Which was idiotic and I deeply
> regret it.
>
> Should I proceed with the non-destructive system recovery? If it's
> successful, I will still have all my files.
>
>
>
> Stuck & Worried,
> Pikey