Major problem

[McMofo08]

today, my computer started freaking out, command line started popping up, random internet pop ups, i have not had a pop up in a VERY long time. so first instinct was to run, AVG and lavasoft ad-aware. ad-aware found tracking cookies, only 5 though, AVG found 5 trojans though, AVG cleaned it up and then i thought nothing of it. my laptop started to get really hot and ran really slow, so i pulled up the task manager and it was running at 100%, so i closed everything waited and then turned it off. im the only one that uses it other then my little brother and sister when im there, so i never use a login password... when i started it up again a few hours later, it asked me to enter my password. i didnt even know if i had a password, so i clicked okay, when it went to desktop i saw my desktop image and then a error popped up, i think it was DEP error or something asked me to close message so i did, then the start bar never popped up no folders or files on my desktop and it was just blank, nothin. i cant run anything without going through loops. i managed to get on the internet by going through hp support. i have no idea what to do. please help me soon, im taking instrumentation/automation technology and have software and files that i need for school.

thank you very much for your time

[LiBOC]

It seemed very terrible. Extract all your important data out first. You can actually download a bootable 'LIVE' version of Linux and get into your hard-disk to extract your files.

Once you done that, reinstall your Operating System. A clean install sounds like a better idea other than trying to fix the loop holes.

Conclusion:
You need a LIVE CD. Ask your more tech-savvy friends, they might have a Linux version for you. Extract your files by transfering them to your thumbdrive or portable harddisk.

You can donwload your own LIVE CD operating system too. http://www.livecdlist.com/

A good example: http://www.slax.org/get_slax.php
Burn the ISO image in your cd if you can. If not, download it as a .tar file into your thumbdrive.

Hope it helps.

[McMofo08]

okay, so my understanding is that linux is an operating system, if i download this will i lose ANY files? because i do know that when installing a new OS it deletes files, or everything, and i cannot afford to lose the majority of files on my internal hard-drive. and if i download it as a .tar onto an ext. hard-drive, what would i do after that? and if it doesnt work, which i do not doubt your knowledge, will i still be able to access the internet through my loophole? im an analytical person and just like to have all of my bases covered before i commit to things.

thank you for your time and help.

[McMofo08]

i just tried something that was a longshot yet worked. i looked at the processes running and explorer wasnt running, so through the task manager i clicked run and entered explorer, start menu popped up files and folders came on everything, perfect... for now

[skatamatic]

If you're not comfortable using a linux OS bootable, use Windows Live (google it). I had a virus once that seemed to cause rediculous memory leaks (started at 0 and within a minute spiked my mem use to 100%, which caused an out of mem exception and bumped it back down to 0, and repeated the cycle). I had to format my system, and you probably have to do the same.