HP Pavillion 700 problems

[#1]

I'm having a problem with an HP pavillion 700 using XP home
At first there were a couple of virus. All I know is one of them was a trojan
Now the computer wont start properly
Windows starts to boot then before the final stage it just restarts itself, over and over
It does the same in safe mode
I'm not sure if its a hardware aor software problem caused by the virus
Theres no recovery disc. It was never provided when computer was bought and the shop that sold it are unhelpful
no help from HP either
has anyone any ideas on a solution?
Thanks

[#2]

Now the computer wont start properly
Windows starts to boot then before the final stage it just restarts itself, over and over
It does the same in safe mode
I'm not sure if its a hardware aor software problem caused by the virus
Theres no recovery disc. It was never provided when computer was bought and the shop that sold it are unhelpful
no help from HP either
has anyone any ideas on a solution?
Thanks

[#3]

Moderator's Note
I have merged together two identical topics
B.

[#4]

Did you ever have the recovery disk? Did you get the computer from new? Still have a receipt?
If yes to the 3 above you should be able to get help from HP but they'll be slow about it. Also watch out for getting through to the scottish guy called Alan (if he's still employed there) as I had dealings with him in the past resulting in him shouting loudly down the phone at me.
Otherwise it might be a good old pen and paper job to their customer services dept.
You might also want to consider going and getting a normal Windows CD and installing windows the old fashioned way. Now, you'll loose any software you had installed on the machine (like word) but at least your machine will be alive again.
Also be sure to have the memory scanned when you get it running again. Some trojans like Sub7 are evil little gits which install themselves not only into some core elements of windows but IN TO THE MEMORY. When this happened to me years ago the motherboard had to be tattooed again which the local PC world bods had no idea about. It's a procedure thats done very rarely. The bios and system tattoo are 2 totally different things. Some people know all about flashing bios's but I've never met anyone who can tattoo a system to get it working again. If you do have anything in the memory its gonna be cheaper to get a new motherboard I'm afraid. The memory thing is only really a big problem for a recovery disk - most of the time if you're using a normal Windows cd it makes no difference. The only reason recovery CDs are affected is that they check the tattoo to determine that the motherboard is the right one (basically to stop you using the disk on any machine).

[#5]

Most HP's come with a hidden partition which contains the recovery cd did you create a cd. There is normally an option to create one and when you do it wipes the partition so you can only do it once.
All that has happened is windows has a fault and in the option by default it says reboot on error stupid idea I know but thats MS for you. As you have that ticked its just keeps rebooting.
Do you get any error messages?
If you havent got a Xp disk you are stuffed but if there is a serial number on the pc for xp then you could borrow one and use your serial.
Your option then are booting from a util like Partition Magic and see if there is still a hidden partition which will have the cd image on if it has recover it.
Boot from a borrowed cd and do a repair unless there is an error message which tells you whats wrong.
Reinstall windows.
Have you tried safe mode, last known good configuration and the other option form pressing F8 on boot up?
A odd chance try pressing F11 on boot up as some have the recovery set to come on when pressing F11

[#6]

Quote from: samuria

Most HP's come with a hidden partition which contains the recovery cd did you create a cd. There is normally an option to create one and when you do it wipes the partition so you can only do it once.

Yesp I'll agree with that. I forgot about that being the case these days. Packard Bell did that with one of our machines. Lord knows why, it's only 50p for a CD...

Quote from: samuria

If you havent got a Xp disk you are stuffed but if there is a serial number on the pc for xp then you could borrow one and use your serial. Boot from a borrowed cd and do a repair unless there is an error message which tells you whats wrong. Reinstall windows.

The Windows keys for an OEM version of windows don't work on normal versions of Windows so using a borrow Windows CD isn't going to help as the thread starter will need to use the key for the borrowed CD instead. Also doing a repair doesn't really work after messy virus's. I'd recommend it if windows had developed a general fault but never for virus's. I wouldn't even recommend a rollback for that.
@juliasdream:
It might be worth taking your computer to a local shop to at least get your files recovered. I forgot to mention that by reinstalling windows everything will get wiped from your hard drive. Sorry .. wasn't quite thinking clearly yesterday...