My husband obtained a second-hand computer before he and I met. It is a COMPAQ Presario C500. The sticker on it’s underside says it came with Vista. Evidently someone replaced it with XP as that’s what it’s currently running.
My husband doesn’t know anything about computers and got himself a wicked virus. I don’t know what it is because he didn’t tell me when he first got it and now I can’t get anything to load at all. The computer starts up and gets to the main login screen and freezes. Not even the mouse will move. When I try Safe Mode, the black background boots, but no icons or the start bar come up. I ran both a HD scan and memory scan in Setup and it passed.
At this point, I don’t care about saving anything. I want to wipe the HD, but I don’t have any Windows boot disks since it’s second hand and I’m not sure if I can use my own Dell Vista boot disks to reinstall. I don’t want to try it, cause then I’ll really be up a creek if it doesn’t work. If anyone can help me, I’d really appreciate it!
