Black screen when booting

Hi all,

I have a problem with my Laptop when I restart the OS. It uses Windows Vista Home Premium 32 bit.

The desktop is not appeared, it is fully blank of black, except 'My Documents' of windows explorer.

I found this problem since I had a message from someone (via Yahoo Messenger) that share a link.. I didn't know whether it is a virus or not, but accidentally I opened the URL and extracted the file attached.. Unfortunately, when I restart the Operating System, I got a black screen with a Documents of window explorer..

I have tried the methods that has been posted in this forum with the topic search 'black screen of death', and another additional methods, except re-install OS; but there is no changes till now..

When I tried to create a new user account, it ran normally if using the new account; but when I got back to my infected account it still displayed black screen..

I'm afraid I could not re-install it, because it will need a hard configuration,..

Now, I really confuse what should I do to make it runs well?

My temporary plan is to use another new account and run with it normally, but I wonder with my infected account, what happened with the infected account; Is there any possibility that the infected account will influence my new account or any related system programs?
Is this the only available and safe way to run my OS well?

Please help, and thank you..

--
WR

You seem fairly certain that it is a malware problem, yet you haven't made any mention of running anti-virus scans, or the state of your security software.

If this is due to malware infecting your computer, then your security software was probably not up-to-date, or effective. At this point, you cannot trust your security software, since it may also be affected by the malware.

What I would do, is take the hard drive out of your computer and connect it up temporarily to a computer that has good and up-to-date security software, to do a thorough scan and repair.

Once your hard drive is clean of infections, then you can address the various problems caused by the malware.

Thank you Windrider6,

But I have an update anti-virus and I scanned my computer and it did find a virus with no name and it could not be deleted or healed.. There's no action that can be applied to that virus.. and the other thing is the virus itself is in a file, and I suppose it is one of file system.. :-)

Probably the virus infected your computer when the AV program was not up-to-date, otherwise the infection would have been stopped by the AV program at the moment you downloaded the bad file.

Security programs are good at stopping infections, but once your computer is infected, they sometimes cannot cure the computer, especially if the infection damages OS system files or the AV program.

I would recommend tracking down information about this particular virus, and the file that is infected (if there is only one file). Learn about the virus by using the virus database information on your AV program's website and the rest of the Internet. Other people have dealt with it before, no doubt. Forums dedicated to security would also be a good place to look for help (instead of here).

Learn about the infected file by "googling" it, or use a website like ProcessLibrary.com.

What you do from here depends on what you learn, and what you are comfortable doing.

If the virus scanner you used shows you where the virus is, you may be able to delete it manually. Which virus scanner are you using?