The computer is running two hard drives in RAID 0 with a third hard drive on it's own as a sort of back up.
The problem is that my taskbar shows only a little bit of the top of itself when I start the computer, then it usually goes away completely shortly thereafter. It's not hidden, it actually disappears. The windows button doesn't work or anything.
There are a number of errors in the event log, but I can't view them. Nothing happens when I try to view them. All they say is "Application Error" and under the error column, they say 1000.
There are no network connections showing in my network connections, my printer doesn't work, and the windows sound doesn't play when I start windows.
My virus scanner bit the dust, and I can't make it work (AVG FREE), I have un-installed it and re-installed it a number of times, but I keep getting errors and it won't scan or update or anything.
And the weirdest thing; One time when I restarted it, it froze while booting, and there was a strange smiley face sitting at the top of the screen, with a green line flashing next to it. It was never there before, and I haven't seen it since.
My first guess is that I have a virus, but I can't get AVG to work so I can't get rid of it because that's the only way I know how to deal with viruses.
Please help me!!