Holy crap that SUCKED
Man, yesterday was just bollocks, seriously.
Everything was going smooth until I got a bit fed up with my computer acting strangely. So I downloaded what is supposed to be the best virus scanner out there, Nod32. I ran it and it was scanning and coming up with exactly the infected files I expected it to, so I was way happy. It told me I could delete them safely, so I did, and then it restarted my computer.
And nothing happened.
Literally, it would get to a point and then just refuse to boot up any further. I couldn't even get into Safe Mode!
I think what happened was that one of the Windows XP core files was accidentally wiped when the program tried to "cure" it. The virus was imbedded so deep that it ate my system when I tried to remove it. Ouch.
I spent a few hours playing with it, trying to figure out if I could afford a new copy of Windows XP since I no longer have my restore disks. I even called my parents to see if they had a copy. Finally, I gave up and went downstairs to meet my downstairs neighbors' new dog, Uncle Gus, who is an awesome pit/mastiff mix.
It turned out she had a copy of Windows XP Professional, so I spent the next three hours jury rigging a repair re-install despite the fact that I had Windows XP Home on there before. It took forever, but it finally installed, and by some small miracle all I had to do was crack the activation code and it works fine now!
Damn computers. Grr.
By some miracle most of my data seems intact. I had all of my school and work stuff backed up, of course, but a lot of my fic and media would have likely been lost, and I was a bit worried about potentially having to reformat.
ANYWAY. Crisis averted!
My friend Aaron called me out of the blue in the middle of the re-install and he says I sounded so pissed on the phone, but I didn't even realize it. ROFL