ok guys this is a major problem as it's my gf's hp laptop and i think it was my fault. anyways i had installed spyware doctor, webroot spyware sweeper, jr16's power tools, reg cure, and xoftspy. now i ran the wipe drive tool on the power tool program for my portable dive (not the laptop drive, i made sure it was mine) i also ran spyware doctor and it found some nasty things such as a trojan key logger so i removed them. when i installed the spysweeper it said to restart, so i did and now it will power up but the hp invent screen just sits there and no keys will do anything, until it suddenly shuts off like the power plug was pulled. i'm not sure that she has the discs for the laptop either, and if she does they are 40mins away. she uses this laptop for school so she is going to kill me when she wakes up if i don't figure this one out. please please help me so i don't die.
thank you!

Press the power button and keep tapping the delete key until it enters set up

If it does that

Items in blue which are underlined are clickable to give more information about the process

Start the System Restore Utility at a command prompt

1. Restart your computer, and keep tapping F8 during the initial start-up until you get options, select Safe Mode with a Command Prompt then press enter.

2. Log on to your computer with an administrator account or with an account that has administrator credentials.

3. Type the following command at a command prompt, and then press ENTER:

%systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe

4. Follow the instructions that appear on the screen to restore your computer to an earlier state.

Look for the most recent system checkpoint created before the errors to restore from

For additional information about the Safe mode with a command prompt, click 315222 to see a description of the Safe Mode Boot Options in Windows XP

well i was hpoing that the delete key would work.... however it still just shuts off. i've also tried f2 and the f8 keys as well as ctrl+alt+delete only to have it still shut off. i knew that i could do a system restore if it had loaded but i don't get anything like it's even trying to load. i've never had this stuff happen before.

(edit: ok now this may sound REALLY weird but i unplugged the usb portable drives that i had plugged in to the usb hub and it started itself and is staying on just as everything should be. broken computer? what broken computer? things seem to be fine at the moment, but i'll let you know if i need anything else, and thanks for replying so fast )

This post has been edited by baby_blue_6_4: Nov 18 2006, 01:31 PM