Super slow startup and nothing is working....

My hp laptop ( running on vista) was working fine this afternoon until my battery died. When I later tried to plug it into the charger it turned on but wouldn't go past a Black screen. I tried starting it again and it did start ( after leaving it for about 10 minutes) but it opened an error page that I did not even get to read it before the laptop turned off. I restarted in safe mode and ran McAffee which did find a virus and removed it. I again tried restarting it but it still took 10 minutes. I then tried to use system restore but all of my save points had somehow been deleted. It also will not let me open the control panel. I'm out of ideas/ knowledge. Help?