The night before last, my computer somehow contracted a virus. The security programs on my computer made this very clear to me. However, when I tried using my antivirus to get rid of it, it wouldn't work. So, I resorted to using System Restore to get rid of it. I made my computer go back to the day before. This seemed to work as I wasn't getting anymore warnings and everything was working and back to normal.

Then last night I noticed that Google, Yahoo and many other search engines weren't working for me. I couldn't go to Google's website at all, but I could go to Yahoo's website, just the search wouldn't work. Whenever I tried to go to it, I'd get a blank white page and the URL in the title bar. I figured this might have been caused by the virus or just a general problem, so I again relied on System Restore to fix it. I decided to take my computer back to October 14.

It went through the process and then restarted like usual. After SONY appeared on the screen at the beginning of start up, it restarted again. This time, after the SONY logo appears, a message popped up. It told me that my computer wasn't shut down properly and gave me some choices on what I should do next. It's the screen that lets me start up in Safe Mode, with Networking and Command Prompt, Last Known Good Config or Start Windows Normally. I went through all five choices, but nothing worked. After I picked one, it restarted and brought me back to the same screen again. It was an endless loop.

I thought that the virus was to blame, but I've been reading around and apparently this has been happening to other people because of an update they got from Windows. When I picked my restore point, it didn't say "System checkpoint" on the day I chose. I can't really remember what it said, but I believe it said something about an update. I'm pretty sure it didn't say anything like "Windows update," though. And I'm also sure that my computer downloaded an update earlier this week, too. The difference is that these people had this problem as soon as they got the update. My computer got the update just fine. It's when I used system restore that I got this problem. And I possibly restored it to when that update was downloaded to my computer.

If it's of any help, I use a Sony Vaio with Windows XP Media Center Edition (2002, I think).

It's very important that I fix my computer and do so without wiping out my hard drive and losing all my files. I have a lot of important and valuable files on my computer that I do not want to lose. So if anyone knows how or has any idea of what I can do to get back into my computer without having to erase everything or at least save my files and then fix my computer, that would be very much appreciated. Thank you!