Can't get past the windows loading screen

How do I clean a virus off a hard drive when the virus can spread to the uninfected hard drive and shut it down within a few minutes, before the infected hard drive can be cleaned?

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I think my computer contracted a virus from an infected hard drive. My brother-in-law brought his computer to me because he thought he had a virus. Every time he tried to start windows, he would get to the windows loading screen and then the computer would reset itself.

So I removed his hard drive and plugged it into my computer. (I've used this method before to clean a hard drive so I thought I would be fine.) I turned it on and ran it in safe mode. I was trying to figure out how to get my anti-virus program to run in safe mode (I have NOD32 version 4, I guess it only works through the command prompt in safe mode) when my computer shut down by itself. I tried to restart my computer, but when I got to the loading screen my computer shut down.

I tried using system restore, which seemed to work for a little while. I was able to get pass the loading screen and it worked normally for a few minutes, then it shut down. When I restarted, it didn't make it past the loading screen.

Now I can't get passed the loading screen no matter what I do. I really don't want to reformat the hard drive because I have family pictures I don't have copies of on there. What should I do?