Acer Aspire 5335 laptop will not boot up

[AphexN]

Hi all, hoping someone can help me with this!

I was online earlier when suddenly my laptop started screaming about a virus being detected. My virus protection expired last week, and I hadn't got around to replacing it thanks to having no money, so in a bit of a panic, I immediately turned off my modem and then turned off the laptop. Now, however, the laptop will not start up; here's the exact sequence of events that takes place on pressing power on:

Acer loading screen starts as normal.
Blue 'loading' bar fills at normal speed
Screen then switches to blank black screen with a flashing cursor in the top left corner

Pressing most buttons produced a high pitched 'beep' sound, and the only thing that seems to do anything is Ctrl-Alt-Delete, which simply seems to reset the black screen with the flashing cursor - the screen goes black, then reverts to the erroneous screen.

I can still get into my Setup Utility screen by pressing F2 during the Acer boot screen, but when it goes beyond that, none of the F buttons will work.

Any suggestions?

EDIT: Some more information:

It's a Vista machine,
Warranty expired ages ago, sadly,
And I haven't opened it up yet.

 

[Route44]

First, we can suggest a number of security softwares that are absolutely free and are excellent in protection.

Second, there is the possibility you'll need to do a reformat due to infection. However, first go to our Virus and Malware Removal forum and read the Updated 8 Step sticky. At this point it doesn't see you'll be able to necessarily do the steps but at least familirize yourself with the process.

Then on that forum, if you cannot do the steps, post your issues and make sure you tell them about the virus.

 

[jamesodriscoll]

Hi,

It sounds like a fresh install of VISTA is the only option available to you here. once you this is done there aare lots of FREE security apps that you can download to stop this from happening again most of which can be found on this site under

downloads -> Security

i would recommend AVAST of AVG for the Antivirus software
and Zonealarm free from the firewalls.

hope this helps
James