JagCrusher

Hi Guys, It seems that I'm having similar problems to a couple of other posters :( I have a Dell Dimension 5100 which is about 5 years old now. Running XP Home, 4Gb RAM, 160Gb Cdrive & and an additional 500Gb storage drive. Late last week I picked up a nasty virus even though I have a non-Windows firewall & run AVG Free. This particular infection would not allow me to open/run any programs nor do a restore - I would get an error message saying whatever.exe is infected... it just directed me to it's website to buy their software (can't remember the name of the website unfortunately). Anyway, when I next went back to my computer - thinking I could try Safe Mode - all I got, after the initial DELL/DOS screen is just a blank, black screen. After joining this forum & having a look round I discovered that I needed to use F8 to enter safe mode (not an option given on start-up) but unfortunately if I try this I get half a screen of DOS prompts/instructions and then nothing else. I just lifted these questions from Jelly Bean in another thread... >>>Are you able to boot into Safemode? No >>>Does your hard drive show on the boot screen? I think so (its difficult to check as I only have internet access at work) >>>Does your hard drive show in BIOS? Not sure >>>Are you sure the recovery console is installed? No idea >>>Or are you using a recovery disk? Don't have one >>>Did you repeatedly tap F10 key on startup? Very possibly as I'm sure that F10 was an option on the start screen (although now I only have F2-Setup & F12-Boot Menu). I would really appreciate any help you guys could give to get my computer back up & running and then virus free. Many thanks in advance! Steve