Avast alerted me to quarantining a virus as I was using ask.com in search of HVAC links. I closed out of that Avast warning box and then tried to backout of Ask.com but PC rebooted, displayed the blue startup page with the Escape/F1/F10 options, but then went to a blank screen with a single blinking cursor at the top of screen. No options to get out of this so I hit alt/ctrl/delete and it again rebooted to present cursor on blank screen. What did I do and any suggestion on how to recover without going through a system restore? I also tried both holding down and repeatedly hitting the F8 key but safemode did not come up. I have an HP PCm7160n desktop running XP with an Intel Pentium D CPU (2.80 GHz/800MHz). Thanks in advance for your help.1 person needs an answerI do too

It sounds like a boot loader problem. If you have your XP cd, boot to it and select repair windows. At recovery console type in fixmbr. If it warns you about over writing the current mbr, type y and hit enter. Reboot and see if that helps.vader95 Windows 95-7 office 97-2010 Ubuntu 9.10-10.10

Have HP Recovery Discs I created but no XP disc came with PC. I inserted the Recovery Disc and it booted to the Full Recovery option, which for obvious reasons I'm trying to avoid. Is there a way to perform a Windows System Recovery to an earlier date in this state of PC unresponsiveness?

not without an xp cd. Maybe a friend has one?vader95 Windows 95-7 office 97-2010 Ubuntu 9.10-10.10