Can you boot to safe mode, we will need instructions for removing Online Armor I am sure and I am thinking of going with revo right off the bat and uninstalling in the safe mode,

Lets get to safe mode first:

1. Restart your computer.
2. When the machine first starts again it will generally list some equipment that is installed in your machine, amount of memory, hard drives installed etc. At this point you should gently tap the F8 key repeatedly until you are presented with a Windows XP Advanced Options menu.
3. Select the option for Safe Mode using the arrow keys.
4. Then press enter on your keyboard to boot into Safe Mode.
5. Do whatever tasks you require(Remove Online Armor) and when you are done reboot to boot back into normal mode.

I have revo on that computer, so I'll boot into safe mode and see if I can remove OA. Stupid of me not to even think of safe mode. Here I go!

I know you do

Run ccleaner also if you have it before booting back to normal mode

Booted into safe mode and removed Online Armor using the uninstall. Checked Control Panel and it is gone from there. Was able to open a browser in safe mode, but same situation when back in normal mode. I will go back to safe mode and run ccleaner. Anything else before I do this?

but same situation when back in normal mode.

Do a system restore in safe mode. or once you get to the advanced options menu again instead of safe mode choose "Last known good Configuration". Either way...

Let us know

I have tried both of these many times and no joy. I used Revo to get rid of all remnants of OA. These things entwine themselves everywhere. Here is what happens when I boot up normally: everything loads, including wallpaper, icons, taskbar, etc. The Avast blue ball twirled several times, the computer screen icons lit up, and Scotty got hung up trying to check the startup programs. Then computer screens go dark, hard disk light goes out for just a second and then comes on and stays on steadily. If I move the mouse pointer to the taskbar, an hourglass appears. I was able to right click recycle bin and an hourglass appeared, but that's all. Right now I do not have a firewall enabled except for my router. I cannot access my router, of course, since I cannot connect to the Internet on that computer. I'll try switching connections tomorrow and use the wireless connection on the desktop. The 3G router I have has only one LAN port, so only one computer can be hard wired. Tried connecting my other router so that more things could be connected, but created some minor problems so abandoned that.

Zep, if you can solve this for me, I'll shine your halo for you. You have truly been my guardian angel. Thank goodness I did a backup to an external hard drive last Sunday, so I won't lose anything if I can't get this up and running again.

If a system restore can't stabilize the computer there is nothing I can do.

You could run malwarebytes from safe mode.

You could also connect to internet using "Safe Mode With Networking" download hijackthis post a log ect ect.

Was there a power failure when you were gone and windows is corrupted because of a bad shut down normally you would see an error here though system32 corrupted or something.

System restore should restore the system to a time when things were working it's used to stabilize an unstable computer.

The next avenue is to do a repair install using the xp cd.

Want to try,

Boot to safe mode with networking download hijactkthis,

Click Here to download HJTInstall.exe
 Save HJTInstall.exe to your desktop.
 Doubleclick on the HJTInstall.exe icon on your desktop.
 By default it will install to C:\Program Files\Trend Micro\HijackThis .
 Click on Install.
 It will create a HijackThis icon on the desktop.
 Once installed, it will launch Hijackthis.
 Click on the Do a system scan and save a logfile button. It will scan and the log should open in notepad.
 Click on "Edit > Select All" then click on "Edit > Copy" and Paste the entire contents of the log (no attachments) into your next post.
DO NOT use the AnalyzeThis button, its findings are dangerous if misinterpreted.
DO NOT have Hijackthis fix anything yet. Most of what HJT lists will be harmless or even required by your Operating System.

If you can get to a cmd prompt
you could try
ChkDsk /F

I forget if you have Vistor or ?? but my Vista will sit there and act stupid after running checkdisk,, but its processing stuff and the hard drive is running for like 20 minutes or more. Seems like its broke,, but its not. That must be hung temptation is to force a shutdown.

Mike, I have XP, SP3.

Zep, I will do this later. Have an appointment late this morning, so it will be mid-afternoon or later before I can do all this.

I think there was a power blip overnight because both microwave and phone answering machine were affected. Normally, I shut down my computer at night, but just happened to leave it on the other night. Sigh!

try doing a full power down on every thing disconnect every single thing from power including router all pc's printers etc that are connected to the pc, turn off the toggle switch on back of pc once shut down. Leave it all off for at least 10 mins more if possible. then power up your router, printer, other stuff and pc last, remembering to switch on the toggle switch before hitting the on button,sometimes a full disconnect from power after a power interrupt can fix things.
so be sure you do actually unplug from the wall power source not just turn off the power bar.

I completely disconnected everything from power including wall outlets. Waited about 20 minutes and one by one reconnected all peripherals and connected power cord to computer last of all. When I pushed the power button I got this screen: Disk Boot Failure - Insert system disk and press enter. This is over my head. I do have a MS DOS boot disk on a floppy. I also have the disks I made from the partition that contained everything when the computer was new. There was a strange noise, like something trying to start "whoom", "whoom". So I wasn't even able to attemp a boot into Safe Mode. I powered off by the button on front of tower, and that's where I am right now.

You have a corrupted boot file sector or a failing hard drive. Windows can't find the boot file or the hard drive is not spinning up and can't be read.

That's why I asked if there was an unscheduled shut down the other day while you were out, windows didn't shut down correctly an the boot sector or windows file system is now corrupted, but now you are hearing noises so that really makes me think the drive is going.

You need a bootable xp disc maybe that friend you help has an xp disc you could borrow it, insert the xp disc restart the computer it should see the xp and try an repair install.

You can Google "Repair Install"

If the drive is bad or going this will be little use, that's all I can think of.

For the record what is the make & model?

This antivir rescue system is cool and it is working, and it is really easy to make the bootable disk on a good computer,

Check out the link

As long as the hard drive is ok.....

Here is a link that might be useful: antivir_rescue_system

I have burned the rescue disk and will try it after dinner. Right now I'm busy cooking. If this doesn't work, I'm debating whether to replace the HDD in this computer or what to do. Thank goodness I backed up all my pictures and music and other things a week ago.

This computer is a HP Pavilion a1130n running Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, build 2600. The processor is AMD Athlon 64, 2.2ghz. The only error message was the one regarding Online Armor, nothing else.

I'll post as to what happens when I try using the boot disk.

What's for dinner?

I can believe you have all backed as that usually is the main issue at this juncture.

Good luck with that disk I an very curious.

Edit,

I can't believe you have all backed-up as that usually is the main issue at this juncture.

Nice work!!!!

ah well I agree if there are sounds now it does sound like it is hard drive related and indeed good that you have backups.

Yes, I can't believe it either, because normally I don't do backups very often. Some 6th sense?

Interesting experience with the Avira boot disk. First I had to find the English flag to get the text off German. I got this message: checking master boot record of drive 128
error (2): cannot read record. same message for drive 129. Then I clicked on "Run scan" and it scanned only 799 files. It read: Finished scanning - Last object /media/Devices/hdd/licenses/gpl-2.txt. That's it. I tried to boot up again and got the black screen with the choices for Safe Mode, etc. It would not go into any mode given, just kept showing the HP splash screen and then returning to the black screen. During this time, I heard clunk, clunk, clunk. So I'm sure the HDD is dead.

I do not want to buy another computer until a few months after Windows 7 comes out, so I'm wondering about replacing the hard drive on this one. I think I could do it (fingers crossed), but I will need some help. I don't remember the brand of the current drive but I know it is a SATA drive at 7200 rpm. Is there anything else I'd need to know to buy another one? I think I have some information about doing this in the books that came with my computer, and I'm sure I can follow printed instructions. This will have to wait a while as we are leaving this weekend on vacation and will be gone two weeks.

You know what I will let others answers those questions.

Before spending money on a hard drive you might want to unplug and replug the hard drive and its power connection on both ends to make sure its not simple a loose connector.

If you're seeing the enter safe mode screen, I think its reading that from the hard drive meaning the hard drive is working.

But what about the clunk, clunk, clunk noises, Mikie?

There is a BIOS update for that computer. Updating the BIOS has got much safer these days but be very aware that if it fails or there is a power outage during the process the motherboard is history, there is no fix.

Having written that, I would at this point plop the recovery CD in the drawer and start the computer. You wisely have all the data safely stored so you have nothing to lose except time and you have already spent some of that on this issue.

If after that there are still noise issues you might want to check the make of the hard drive and visit their site if the computer runs at all for a test. Also check the manufacturing date and warranty period. Some are 3 years while others are only one.

Here is a link that might be useful: Similar problem fixed with flashing the BIOS

Hard drive sounds see link click the black arrow see if it sounds like yours.

Here is a link that might be useful: hard_drive_sounds

I put in the Recovery Tools CD and it opened the Windows Recovery Console. I chose Repair and the next screen read "Examining 131068MB Disk 0 at Id 0 on bus 0 atapi..." This stayed on and never moved with the hdd light staying steady. After more than 20 min. I shut down and restarted with the Recovery Disk 1 in the drive. This time I got the message "No hard disk found". Also the clunking noise returned at this point, so I guess that tells me something. I have good documentation with this computer with instructions for removing and adding drives along with drawings, so I think I can remove this drive and put a new one in. Seems pretty straightforward, especially with the SATA drive. Zep, none of those noises sound exactly the same, but it is more nearly like the ones indicating damaged or bad sectors. I had BelArc Advisor and wish I had accessed that when I was able to boot into Safe Mode, since that would tell me the make of the drive. Oh, well, yeah, we just had a water pipe into our water heater spring a leak and squirt water all over our crawl space. What is it about trouble coming in threes?

Yes removing or installing a hard drive is quite a simple task really. As it now seems the drive is gone you could remove the drive to check the manufacture date. It would be nice if it was still covered.

I hope you have a friend who can fix the leak to avoid a plumber's fee.

Owbist, hubby fixed it in a matter of minutes.

I really don't think the drive is still under warranty as it has been over three years since I bought the computer.
I've checked prices and a new drive can be had for $59.99 from Tiger Direct, a little cheaper than NewEgg. This price was the same for both Seagate and Western Digital. So I have some work cut out for myself when we return from vacation next month. It's the restoring of all data and reinstalling of programs that I dread.