Because of this, I went I cleared Firefox's cache and I intended to start a virus scan. I have MacAffee Security Centre installed, but I haven't actually updated it in a while. However, the MacAffee screen has always claimed I'm fully protected for the internet.
Anyway, I started to update MacAffee so it would be fully up-to-date. About half way through updating (I assumed it had started some sort of virus scan as well), it came up saying I had some sort of Trojan on my PC that couldn't be quarantined. It claimed I needed to restart my computer and then it would start an automatic scan. I clicked on the approrpriate button for it to start to do this.
As far as I can remember the file in question was something like "Issas" or similar. It was located (I think... I'm doing this memory) in the Application Data folder (once again, I'm going on memory).
It took a while to start to shut down the machince, but finally it did. However, it didn't restart again. It got past the "eMachines" logo and the "Windows XP" start up screen, but then it went black. After about a minute a blue screen came up saying something along the lines of "blah blah blah terminated" (sorry, that's all I can remember!).
I switched the machine off at the wall and attempted to start it again from scratch. However, it's now stuck in a vicious cycle of displaying the "eMachines" logo, followed by the "Windows XP" start up screen, then repeating the same thing again and again.
Please can someone tell me what to do!
I'm using Windows XP SP2 on an eMachines desktop PC. My internet browser is FireFox.
I've tried F8, but unfortunately it hasn't helped. First I attempted to load the computer with the "Last Known Good Configuarition", but that didn't get me anywhere. It just kept going around in the same cycle. I then attempted Safe Mode, but this hasn't helped either.
According to this site (Unable to get into Windows safe mode.), the best thing to do now is reinstall Windows. I don't really want to do this as I have some data that isn't backed up. Nothing major, but I'd still rather not lose it. All the important things (current work, family photos and videos) are backed up, however.
Unless you can suggest anything otherwise, I'll wait 'till I'm next in work to see the office tech (not in this week). If he can't suggest anything then it's either a trip to PC World or reinstall the whole thing.
Either way, thank you very much for all your valuable help!