troubleshoot a pc

Clarifications

If you do a search with the arguments 'download "system mechanic" ' and if you are using McAfee's SiteAdvisor, some of the top sites the search returns are marked with RED because of the spyware hosted on those sites.

If you do not know how trustworthy a download site is, go to www.siteadvisor.com and check it out.

You need to scan your computer for spyware and viruses. Get hold of a copy of a reputable anti-spyware product like Microsoft's Windows Defender or Spybot Search & Destroy, and make sure you have an anti-virus application installed. It would be best for all the definitions to be uptodate, but if you cannot run any applications in normal mode, we have to start from somewhere.

You may be able to install one of them in the Safe Mode: after powering on the PC, press F8 a couple of times to get into the menu and select Safe Mode. Install the anti-spyware application and also anti-virus if you do not have one already. Do a full scan of both types of nasties, one at a time, and hopefully the problem will disappear.

Have you tried to boot up in safe mode?

First restart your pc; then press the F8 Key during boot-up; depending on your pc you should see a dos screen with various listings;You might try start pc with setting that worked; if that fails choose the safe mode with command prompt, when it appears it may ask you to choose the operating system you wish to access if there is just one you should see a C: prompt. then type in chkdsk /r and press enter. if it gives you a message that the drive can not be unmounted just say yes to the schedule check, then type exit . then reboot your pc and let the chkdsk run. 9 times out of 10 this will fix any file corruption problems. if the problem persists uninstall the most recent program installed. Hope this helps...........RebelEagle

What do you system logs say? Do you get any error messages before it shuts down or when you restart and log back in?