This is good!! (Not for me but from a trying to sort out perspective I think you will have to think hard!!) I have an HP laptop. It got a virus - nothing bad, I am running Norton so I went to Symantec and got the removal instructions. So as told to I disabled system restore, and started to run Norton to find the virus. I left the machine to run the scan and when I returned a couple of hours later Windows had restarted into Safe Mode. I restarted and again it will only start in Safe Mode - if you try a normal boot a blue screen flashes up for a split second - too fast to read and then the machine restarts on the choose your mode menu. Obviously the first thing I would normally try is to system restore - but I had to turn it off to run Norton!! When I had the machine in safe mode I re-ran the Norton and the Virus weas still present. I deleted it with no problem and checked the registry - it had made no changes. Has anyone got any ideas? I am hoping not to have to re install windows as I had to do that not too long ago and it was a pain as I lost a lot of data/photos etc. I look forward to hearing from you. Cheers Hutchie

To find out what blue screen says-- Right click My Computer, Properties, Advanced tab, Settings button (Starup and Recovery), uncheck Automatically Restart. Now you should get an error message when it happens again. ----------------------- OR How to Perform a Clean Boot in Windows XP To help troubleshoot error messages or other issues when you cannot determine the cause of the issue, disable common startup programs, settings, and drivers to eliminate possible software conflicts when you start Microsoft Windows XP. This procedure is known as "clean booting." ------------- (Can be done by way of Windows Safe-Mode, if normal Windows does not work) A Description of the Safe Mode Boot Options in Windows XP logon as Administrator, but where it says RESTART, restart into normal Windows.) ------------- How to perform advanced clean-boot troubleshooting in Windows XP Print the articles for reference. ---------------- To find out what each Startup(or Process) item does or means, and any recommendation as to if you should close the process: Task List Programs

Great, thanks for that I managed to get the error message - 0x0000007f (0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000). Having searched I found it could be a problem with the registry due to a Norton problem - I changed the registry and it made no difference. I then found it could be a RAM problem - I ran a test and the RAM is fine. It was also suggested that it could be a hardware problem and that I should swao or remove controllers or cards - I am not 100% sure what is meant by this!! Could someone explain it to me...

Thanks for that - I got an error message - 0x0000007f (0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000) It's not a Symantec Norton problem with thregistry I changed that and it had no effect. It's not a RAM problem - I ran a test - however it is also suggested I remove/swap the hardware and I am not sure what that relates to... can anyone help please!