Vista Won't load past welcome screen

hey

My antivirus software expired, so when I log in my computer screen turns black and cannot click on anything and there is this message that says I have a spyware/malware threat, and an automatic window pops up saying I need to buy internet security. Help!

Hi Tech, I have windows vista home pre version. never had any problems with it untile I shut it off the other night, and the next day it was in safe mode, I have tried everything to get it back in the normal mode, but no luck. ITS been about 4 days and its still stuck on safe mode. If you can help me I would appreciate it, because im about ready to buy some new software for my computer. thank you montcut

when you press the power button press f1 repeatly or f2 try to find it from they
i don't think you need help from here but
still have ?'s email me!!

Ok, I am a certified technician for a prominent computer manufacturer. There is a problem with several of the posts in this thread. Several of you have different issues, all of which have the same symptoms.

First off-Michelle: You need to check your video drivers. This is the most common cause of random characters/vertical or horizontal lines. Since it is successful in safe mode, I would start by checking drivers.

Danspan: When you get the black screen of death (mouse cursor on a black screen) you can try and restart explorer as you posted (ctrl, shift, esc will bring up task manager) and then click File-New task-explorer.exe. This will (in most cases) let you get your icons and desktop up normally, at least once so you can back up your data.

CompTech: You are exactly right. Most of the problems (with the exception of the crunching hard drive) IS ABSOLUTELY caused by the user. Malware, Spyware, Adware, and viruses cause the majority of damage to computers we see today. Be careful where you go. Don't download crap from limewire, torrents etc. Even if you think you are protected by running your Norton or Mcaffee, you are being fooled. There are between 8 and 10 THOUSAND new viruses written every WEEK, mostly from eastern Europe and former Soviet Union. If I was a virus programmer, I would write it to do everything in its power to avoid the major antivirus software, which is what most of you probably have.

For most of you, (if you do not have premium tech support from your computer manufacturer), your system is probably too hosed for you to fix on your own. You will more than likely need to do a full format and start from scratch.

Anyone reading this, take it as a life lesson, or a wake up call. The internet can be a very very dangerous place, depending on what you do and where you go. ALWAYS back up your data. I recommend 4 programs for the average user. All of these are FREE! Malware Bytes, SpyBot search and destroy, AVG free antivirus, and CCcleaner. CCcleaner is a great utility that fixes bad and unused registry entries, along with normal housekeeping (ie cookies temp internet files etc. )

When Vista wont load (or Xp for that matter) its a direct result of either new software being installled, or a hardware failure. Simple as that. Software can be anything you intentionally loaded, or something that came in the back door and infected the computer (like spyware or a vurus)

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY!!!! Anything that says Windows Antivirus 2009, or Windows Antivirus 2008, or Windows Antivirus Xp, or anything with Windows and Antivirus in it---is a VIRUS! It is very sneaky and looks like a real program. It will eventually tell you your trial is up and asks for a credit card number. It is stealing this information. It looks like a legitimate program and many people think It's a Microsoft application. It actually runs what looks like a legitimate virus scanner. It is so sneaky, that if you select restart from the start menu, your computer doesn't actually restart. It simply shows an image onscreen that looks like the Windows XP reboot screen. We see this happening on Vista machines all the time.

Pop ups, or redirects to pages you didnt select are indicators of malware/spyware. Malware Bytes should take care of most of these.

Hope this helps some of you.

Oh one last thing. To correctly run check disk...

get to the command line.

Type cd/

type chkdsk /f /r

There is a space between the chkdsk and /f and /r

It should read as follows

C:/chkdsk /f /r

Hi digital,

I have a Acer Aspire 5100- 5528. I recently got a blue screen error and the laptop just rebooted. It said "Error: 200: Failure fixed disk drive 0". On a reboot again Vista worked flawlessly, till recently when the dreaded blue screen again came up and then the vista wont go beyond the "Microsoft Corporation" screen. The windows logo too wont show up. I did a complete system restore back to original factory default and again the same thing that windows wont boot beyond the "Microsoft Corporation" screen. On a reboot it came to the initial settings screen and again would not go beyond a certain point in setting up Windows.

I have even tried the Acer service centre which advised me that the hard disk has gone bad. I replaced the hard disk with a new one and tried using the old hard disk as a external USB HDD. When connected through the USB port the HDD works absolutely fine without any problems. I tried to reboot the system using the USB HDD as the first boot option. Again the same thing.

Please advice is it really a HDD issue or is it something with Vista. Is there any way I can use the old HDD instead of the new one? Could it be a boot sector failure on the old hard disk.

regards

I like what I read under your response and have a similar problem. I would like it if you could help me. I have a Toshiba Satellite 215-4196 w/ Vista Premium. Love, love love it. However, one night I had fallen to sleep on the couch with a glass of water next to it. You know where this is going. I left early in the morning for the day, came home that evening, pushed the button to turn it on. And it wouldn't come on. I checked all the connections and when I looked down, there was a letter misising and it was absolutely soaked. We had a new kitten and I beleive what had happened was that she decided to play in the water. I quickly disconnected it. But fear it was too late at that point, and let it dry out for a few days. A few days later it would reboot. Came on and I was able to use it like normal, until the battery died. Then I removed the battery and gave it to someone at my place of work to copy all my data that I desperately needed. He did that, and said good news you can use it with the battery removed. But you may have fried the charging system. So being excited I took it home, plugged into the wall and turned it on. The welcome screen came up, and asked for my password. I promptly entered it. I kept giving me an error message saying it was the wrong password and the hint came up. It was exactly what I thought it should be. I kept reentering it, and on occasion it looked as though it was loading. Then an error message stating to use a thumb drive or floppy disk because there was no drive came up.

My question would be... any thoughts on what drive they are referencing? Can I download it from Toshiba? Do you know any way of getting around this? I can work a program, but when it comes the guts... I'm useless, but I do follow direction quite well. Can you help me please? I'm just devastated. You don't know how hard I had to work to get this lap top and how long it took me to save for it.

this helped a lot. ican actually do stuff. now im hunting for the bad program. thanks