first off- i really need to fix this- and fast- because the laptop is NOT MINE and there are IMPORTANT FILES on it- i need to revert the computer to how it was before with all documents intact (preferably with settings as well) This is exactly what happened: i was surfing on a sketchy website and picked up a virus without even downloading anything and had cookies disabled symantec started acting weirdly- reported that it had deleted something in the google chrome downloads folder- but wouldnt respond to anything i did- then a few of popups came up that wouldnt respond so i killed them with task manager i had to go to work so i assumed it wasnt a big deal and left the computer on- but when i got back there were symantec boxes all over the screen that said "sending message" or "sending failed" or something like that. Comp wasnt responding at that point so i hard rebooted without going into safe mode and tried to log in (to launch msconfig and try to kill startup processes or something) but it just sat there loading and never logged in. At that point i realized that the comp could be really wrecked so i shut of internet and rebooted in safe mode in an attempt to run a system restore (which in the past has ALLWAYS worked perfectly) but i couldnt even log in with safe mode- all accounts - two users and administrator- suddenly had passwords (did not before) and a box popped up saying that the comp would shut down in 30 seconds then i remembered that the laptop had some recovery features (levono something something restore) so i booted the comp up in "recovery mode" which seemed to have some promise- it loaded fine- but when i tried to start a restore, there were zero backups availiable, making the service utterly useless the only other option was to restore the laptop to factory settings- which was unacceptable because the comp is not mine and has important files on it my last ditch attempt was to launch in safe mode with command box or whatever (never used it before) it apparently launches a command box instead of windows explorer, so i had absolutely no ided how to use it. (at least it started up) i looked up the command for "system restore" and put it in, but i got a response saying "the program could not be launched" so now: can't log in can't use safe mode there are no "lenovo backups" system restore appears to be corrupted how can i possibly fix this and get the comp back to the way it was before i used it????