advice on possible virus

nothing happens when I hit Ctl+Alt+Del

Force shutdown (hold power button in), then boot again. It shall try the CHKDSK again.

OK, wish me luck!

It's freezing at the same spot: 17% (stage 4 of 5). Do a hit ctrl+alt+del?

Please shut down.

Please reboot to Safe Mode (tap the F8 key just before Windows starts to load and select the Safe Mode option from the menu).

Log on to Safe Mode as Administrator.

Then, go to Start > Run
type in chkdsk and hit OK.

It will run a quick CHKDSK then give Windows the assurance the CHKDSK was successful.

One quick question, do you have your Windows XP cd?

Please let me know if the above method worked.

this laptop has Windows Vista. I have the operating system disc from Gateway for this windows vista w/ SP1

Ok. Let me know of the results.

right now it is in safe mode and seems to be frozen at loading windows files. It has not gotten to the point of letting me log on.

It's not going past the loading of windows files. I shut it down and got in safe mode again and it still froze at loading windows files. I'm starting to get scared!

Please place your Vista disc in to the drive. Reboot. Allow it to boot from the disc.

While in setup, choose Startup Repair.

ok. it is saying startup repair could not detect a problem. Also: "If you have recently attached a device to this computer, such as a camera or portable music player, remove it and restart your computer." I have not had anything attached to this since we started trying to fix it.

Oops. hope I didn't do anything wrong. I hit the restart button when startup repair said it could find nothing wrong. When it restarted the discck screen came on again and I hit the cancel button to stop the disc check. Then the desktop screen came on as usual with the "windows has blocked some startup programs" warning window.

It's late now. I'm shutting down the computer. Thanks for your patience.

booted up in safe mode and was able to log on did a run chkdsk and it got to about 54% done and then that window just went off the screen. Ran it again and watched to see that it was at: verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3). Then it had about 5 lines that said "Index entry.........is incorrect" Then it was doing something at 50%, 51%....and at 54% the chkdsk window just disappeared.

Go Start type in CMD and right-click on it in the results pane and select Run as Administrator.
Type in: sfc /scannow
Press enter.

After the first run, reboot your computer. Do a second run. Now the scan and fix is finished.

Dragon Master Jay,
Had a computer friend stop by. He gave kudos to you guys but said "of course it's much easier when one is sitting right at the computer". He did not find a virus on this laptop but thought it was a damaged disk. The problem you and I were having is that in Vista even if one is the administrator there is some program (3 letters..maybe UOS?) that pops up these windows asking to OK any action. I think that means that a disk check can't be done when Windows starts running. (This friend is not a fan of Vista).
So he had to go though some administrative stuff to get that disabled before running a disk check. Something was damaged. Did a repair. Seems to be running fine.

So I'm ready to close this topic and free you up to help all the other poor souls with something nasty on their computers. Thank you soooo very much for all your help. I did learn something about Mbam. You all are great and I will be recommending you to friends.

Thanks. Glad it is working again properly!