I believe that I might have a virus on my laptop. I was working fine yesterday. I had no problems whatsoever. I have an
HP pavilion dv1410 p/n: EH438UA#ABA, s/n: CNF53610NK.
When I turned it on this morning the laptop went to the screen where you select what mode to run windowsXP in. I selected safe mode. When I hit enter a bunch of numbers, letters andsymbols came up and after a few minutes it acted like it was going to boot up and then went back to the screen where I selected safe mode. I tried the other modes that were there but got the same result. I believe it might be a virus but not for sure. Any advice would be helpful.
Thank you,

Jenny, August 2007

Sounds like you install of windows has crashed during loadup. The number and symbols you refer to are possibly the standard on screen diagnostics you get when entering safe mode.

What i would do load the laptop back to the menu where is asked you what mode to choose and try 2 things.
1. Last known good configuration
2. Option not to reboot after failure (cant remember the exact wording off hand)

If the 1st one fails (highly possible) then the 2nd one will tell you if its a windows corruption. Should during the 2nd one a blue screen occur take a note of what it says and google it. Usually tells you what the problem is. Common ones are PAGE IN NON PAGE MEMORY - DLL ERROR - IRQ NOT LESS OR EQUAL something along those lines.

If you get an error its not a virus but a corrupt windows install with possible hardware issue. (RAM nearly always).

My gut feeling is its not a virus, but can never rule it out.

Final thing to try. If you have a windows cd, run it and go through install but when it detects previous version of windows select REPAIR. This will fix windows and keep all your documents and settings.

Good Luck

Phil, August 2007