Hi, a new problem this time that I'm desperately hoping somebody could help me with as this is infact not my machine.
Background; HP Pavilion laptop zd8000, running XP proffessional 2002 service pack 3, Intel(r) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00 GHz 2.99Ghz, 2.00GB of RAM.
I appreciate that this laptop is old, but its an antique in a way and also much beloved of the friend that I'm borrowing it from so any possible suggestions are warmly welcomed.
The most likely cause is a virus as I turned off the firewall settings earlier this evening as a sort of experiment, it really was the most stupid thing I've ever done. I turned the firewall back on after about 2 minutes and around an hour later the whole screen went a rather vivid purple, the sound caught in a loop and then the screen went black and unresponsive although the backlighting was still visible.
Next; I held down the power button to turn off the laptop, and it automatically began to boot up again. The HP logo appeared as expected, the Windows XP loading screen followed and then some crazy light show in the right hand corner followed by a black screen. Since then I have turned off and restarted the computer a few times, minus the "lightshow" this time, with just a plain black screen (no cursor, and I can't launch task manager either as other threads have suggested). My first thought was to try last good configuration, however this led to exactly the same process as before: HP / intel logo -> Windows loading -> black, unresponsive screen.
Next I pressed F8 whilst booting to get into safety mode.
Saftey mode boots perfectly on the laptop, which is what has left me optimistic enough to look for help.
From saftey mode I attempted to system restore, choosing a save from 2 weeks ago which I know to be perfectly fine. I allowed it to complete itself and it all seemed fine, the laptop said it was finished and restarted.
Unfortunately, it made no difference whatsoever. Its still HP/intel -> Windows loading -> Black screen.
I am going to try other save points, although I don't really see that that can be the reason that the system restore didn't work. The problems with the display, the "lightshow" seem to have completely stopped and as I believe a virus to be the problem I don't think that the screen is part of the problem at the moment.
Please could you suggest any steps to take: I do not have any discs associated with the laptop, and would prefer that this was a very very last resort as that would mean admitting my mistake to my friend and asking him to work it out for me with the disc (if, indeed, this is even a possibility).
Thankyou so much for reading and any advice or tips or even hunches would be lovely to hear.
Background; HP Pavilion laptop zd8000, running XP proffessional 2002 service pack 3, Intel(r) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00 GHz 2.99Ghz, 2.00GB of RAM.
I appreciate that this laptop is old, but its an antique in a way and also much beloved of the friend that I'm borrowing it from so any possible suggestions are warmly welcomed.
The most likely cause is a virus as I turned off the firewall settings earlier this evening as a sort of experiment, it really was the most stupid thing I've ever done. I turned the firewall back on after about 2 minutes and around an hour later the whole screen went a rather vivid purple, the sound caught in a loop and then the screen went black and unresponsive although the backlighting was still visible.
Next; I held down the power button to turn off the laptop, and it automatically began to boot up again. The HP logo appeared as expected, the Windows XP loading screen followed and then some crazy light show in the right hand corner followed by a black screen. Since then I have turned off and restarted the computer a few times, minus the "lightshow" this time, with just a plain black screen (no cursor, and I can't launch task manager either as other threads have suggested). My first thought was to try last good configuration, however this led to exactly the same process as before: HP / intel logo -> Windows loading -> black, unresponsive screen.
Next I pressed F8 whilst booting to get into safety mode.
Saftey mode boots perfectly on the laptop, which is what has left me optimistic enough to look for help.
From saftey mode I attempted to system restore, choosing a save from 2 weeks ago which I know to be perfectly fine. I allowed it to complete itself and it all seemed fine, the laptop said it was finished and restarted.
Unfortunately, it made no difference whatsoever. Its still HP/intel -> Windows loading -> Black screen.
I am going to try other save points, although I don't really see that that can be the reason that the system restore didn't work. The problems with the display, the "lightshow" seem to have completely stopped and as I believe a virus to be the problem I don't think that the screen is part of the problem at the moment.
Please could you suggest any steps to take: I do not have any discs associated with the laptop, and would prefer that this was a very very last resort as that would mean admitting my mistake to my friend and asking him to work it out for me with the disc (if, indeed, this is even a possibility).
Thankyou so much for reading and any advice or tips or even hunches would be lovely to hear.
