Laptop won't fully start up after trying to remove a virus.

Hi, I've got a Dell Inspiron 1200 running Window's XP. About half an hour ago I was using the internet when I got all sorts of virus warnings from AVG saying a trojan had been downloaded however it had trouble removing it and shortly after that I started getting the usual strange pop ups and little yellow balloons in the bottom right hand corner of the screen which indicated that I definately had a virus. I therefore shut my laptop down and restarted it with the intention of putting it in safe mode however when I did it just came up with a few lines of text on the screen and didn't do anything else so I tried again with the same result. I then just tried starting it normally only to find that my laptop now starts up with the dell logo showing then just before the windows xp logo would show the screen just goes blank and stays that way (it's definately on just completely blank) with not even the cursor showing. No matter what startup option I choose it just goes to this blank screen although I can still hit F2, F12 and F8 to get into the setup screens etc but not actually start the laptop. Is there anything I can do??? Kind Regards S

Go to the Spyware / Malware / Virus Removal forum, read the info there and follow the posted directions. Once you receive a clean bill of health, come back here if you have any additional questions or concerns or it turns out not to be a malware problem.

Please be patient as that is a very busy area. If you do not receive a response in 3 days, post a message here: http://forums.whatthetech.com/What_If_No_R…931#entry406931

Sorry, I did not realize you had already been to the malware area.

The easiest thing to do at this point is to backup your data, and hope none of it is infected, but definitely scan it with a few malware scanners before restoring it, then do a clean install of XP.

The best thing to do is boot a Linux Live CD like Puppy Linux. See this post by Happyrck on GeeksToGo:

http://www.geekstogo.com/…..=findpost&am…21#entry1197721

Get the latest version available as the one he recommends is no longer easy to find.

Next, boot the XP CD and format the drive during installation to make sure the malware is wiped.