I got my laptop on November 2, 2008 and exactly a month after I got my laptop it crashed and had to return it to factory settings using a recovery system on the hard drive. 5 days later it crashed again and I called hp customer service and she told me that I have to return it to factory settings using the CDs I created when I first got the laptop because there was a virus. However, since then my computer crashed again and again and I don't understand why it keeps crashing because the only place I download something is iTunes and I have McAfee that warns be about potential bad sites.

Crashing can be caused by a myriad of problems. When you crash do you get a Blue Screen of Death with a warning that Windows is shutting down blah, blah, blah along with a code?

I can't really remember if the screen was blue or not for some reason but it didn't says that windows is shutting down. It's more like windows can't start up because of problems within the computer because of a program that I downloaded. This didn't make sense to me because I didn't download a new program before the crash happened and I usually get the crash message when I'm starting up the computer. Also, the most recent crash happened when I didn't even turn off the computer nor downloaded anything.

Uninstall your McAfee Antivirus
Then run the McAfee Removal Tool

Install (the far better) Avira free AntiVirus

Then confirm all your Drivers are up to date h e r e

Then run CCleaner

I'd say it will be working fine (better) after that

I have McAfee total protection. Should I just uninstall the antivirus part or the whole thing?

Thank you for your help.

I'd do the lot

I did everything you said and now I guess I just have to wait and see if it crashes again. Thank you.