XP Crashed - I'm Desperate!

[MBaker2396]

I have a 3-month old ABS Athlon computer running XP Pro. I haven't had too many problems until I tried to open a "How to..." file on the internet which I thought was in document format since it said, "Everyone should just print this out". However when I clicked to open it, my Real player started updating. I have completed all of the Windows updates, so I was a bit surprised. Well, about 86% of the way thru thye update, my machine hung. I couldn't even open Task Manager. So I tried to reboot manually 3 times. My machine has gone from super fast to a mere crawl! I have run a virus scan and spybot. I have recovered the system from a prior date, but with very little difference in performance. I don't know what happened or what to donext. I would appreciate any advice.

[GaryRouth]

Since the machine is only 3 months old, you should be well-covered by its warranty. It does seem that you may have had a malicious program do some damage. If you've made any backups prior to that trouble, an option you have is to run your Recovery or Restore disks that your vendor provided you with. Most have an option to completely repartition and reformat the hard drive, and reinstall everything to the condition the computer was in at delivery. All data on the hard drive added since is lost, and has to be restored after the recovery (and also should be scanned thoroughly for malware before restoring).

If you think the system has scanned clean enough [using several different tools as double-checks (ie, an online antivirus scanner, and an additional spyware scanner)], then you may also have the option of trying a repair reinstallation of XP Pro [you boot from the CD, and press R for repair, and select fast repair]. This would save you from having to reinstall programs added since you bought the computer.

. . . Gary

[P.S. ... if security is your greatest concern, the Recovery Disk is likely to completely wipe out anything thats still hanging about]

[glc]

Gary, XP does not have the fast repair option like 2000 did. All pressing R will do is open the recovery console. You have to go into setup, then it will offer to repair or install a fresh copy - and this repair is a repair reinstall.

MBaker - you may want to open the Security forum and read the sticky thread concerning HijackThis logs - you need to do virus and spyware scans using the suggested applications, then run HJT and post a log, complying with the suggested requirements (after a fresh reboot with nothing else opened yet). Let's look at this before we start reinstalling Windows.