Windows crashed?!?!!??

So, I ran a scan on my rig using Spy Hunter, and once it finished, the program told me I had to reboot the machine.

Now here's the kicker: Windows won't even boot up anymore.

Anyone out there have any clue what the hell happened?

Yeah, the issue here is you ran a scan using some junk software, and well—there you go—it ended up making things worse. Can you manage to boot into Safe Mode by tapping F8, or is that not working? Does it throw a specific error message at you while Windows is trying to start up?

It won't even start loading Windows. It just immediately hits me with a black screen and white text flashing all these random errors right in my face.

I've been using that program for ages now and I have never once run into a single issue, honestly.

...I've already told a few people that this thing is total garbage. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if it was actually designed as malware. There are so many free antivirus programs out there that you can find one that isn't even mentioned on any major lists—just check out the antivirus rankings over on CNET downloads, for instance.

Try to grab a screenshot of whatever error message is popping up on your screen and post the image here so we can actually see what's going on and try to help.

http://www.upslike.net/slika?id=IMG_...702-9e70c6.jpg

I need some help, and I need it right freaking now!!!

Honestly, I think your best bet would just be to wipe the drive and do a fresh install of Windows

I guess it might be best to just perform a fresh installation of the new system. If you happen to have any important documents sitting on your C drive, maybe you could access them through a Linux live session and move everything over to an external hard drive or perhaps even just a flash drive if there isn't much data.

it’s honestly just one single partition

so, you're telling me there's actually a chance to save some of this stuff?

So, how on earth am I supposed to get into this from a Linux live session???

Honestly, the easiest way to handle this is just to grab a Linux Mint live USB. Here’s how I’d go about it:

1. Download Linux http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php
2. Once that's done, you'll need to burn that ISO file onto a blank DVD—or, better yet, just flash it to a thumb drive.
3. Head into your BIOS settings and make sure your CD/DVD drive (or USB drive) is set as the primary boot device.
4. Boot into Linux, and that should be pretty much it—no full installation required. You can just plug in an external hard drive or a USB stick, move all your important files over there, and then you're free to format the main drive and install a fresh version of Windows.

p.s. I'm assuming you're comfortable with the actual Windows installation process, right?

yo, is this http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

do I seriously have to burn this onto a DVD or can I just boot it from a USB stick?

darkmarlin16 said:yo, is this http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

do I seriously have to burn this onto a DVD or can I just boot it from a USB stick?

Yeah, you totally can, you just need some little utility like Rufus or whatever else to burn that ISO image onto a thumb drive

Of course, though you'll probably need some software to make the flash drive bootable.
Basically, you just download the ISO to your desktop, plug in your flash drive (just make sure you clear off any important files first)
and grab this tool Universal USB Installer
Open it up, find your drive and the ISO file—if you grabbed Linux Mint, just pick that from the dropdown menu and hit create. I guess you'll eventually need to set the USB-FDD as your primary boot device so you can run the live Linux environment without actually installing anything.

Lawrence Barnes64 said:Yeah, you totally can, you just need some little utility like Rufus or whatever else to burn that ISO image onto a thumb drive

Honestly, I'd rather just dig through my junk drawer for a DVD, pretty sure I've got a blank one lying around somewhere

Larry Ortiz5 said:Honestly, the easiest way to handle this is just to grab a Linux Mint live USB. Here’s how I’d go about it:

1. Download Linux http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php
2. Once that's done, you'll need to burn that ISO file onto a blank DVD—or, better yet, just flash it to a thumb drive.
3. Head into your BIOS settings and make sure your CD/DVD drive (or USB drive) is set as the primary boot device.
4. Boot into Linux, and that should be pretty much it—no full installation required. You can just plug in an external hard drive or a USB stick, move all your important files over there, and then you're free to format the main drive and install a fresh version of Windows.

p.s. I'm assuming you're comfortable with the actual Windows installation process, right?

Man, step 3 is absolutely killing me.

I can't even move a single cursor once I get in.

My keyboard is totally dead, won't respond to anything.

Man, your POST isn't even getting through. I mean, I guess your Windows setup and everything else is probably running perfectly fine, but you've got a problem here. If you're using a USB keyboard, maybe try unplugging it and plugging it back in? Or if that doesn't work, just try a different USB port, I guess. Anyway, you really need to post a better photo, because it looks like you might be hitting a keyboard error during the POST stage itself...

I ended up just unplugging every single USB device and—boom—it’s actually working now!

I honestly have zero clue how to get this thing configured in the BIOS, it just won't boot up for the life of me

Do you happen to have any of those cheap Chinese USB hubs lying around that might actually work? Maybe try plugging just your keyboard and mouse into it and see if things start behaving... I wouldn't mess around with the BIOS settings just yet... if it still refuses to boot into Windows after that, you could maybe try jumping into the BIOS, loading the default settings, saving, and then exiting...