Thanks again everyone. I'm not posting but I do check back for help often. I do have AVG, I also have Lavasoft, as well as Spybots- Search & Destroy. My intention is to get a new comp sometime between now and the Holidays but in the meantime, I'm still trying to find out what happened to this one. And while it may be that with the validation of XP and the 76 updates they sent I took on something that was incompatible with this dinosaur. I assure you I didn't have the problem before that.
Last night was interesting...I had a couple of AOL Techs who specialize in troubleshooting do a few things that they had no doubt would fix the problem of booting. They didn't, not even system restore. Here is what one who said he worked for top comp makers said to do.
"Have the local repairmen Boot to Safe mode. Check to see if the problem continued, if not one of the software or drivers maight be causing it. If it does not boot properly in the safe mode as well there is a possibility either the hard drive, memory or v-card is at fault."
While that sound plausible to a greenhorn like me. I have to reconcile myself to the fact that i just got this thing back from being from Friday to friday in the repair shop. And the guys saying, no problem with your hardware.
The guy also told me he updated my AVG, and I just tonight realized or thought about the fact that I haven't seen it running since the comp came back. When I turned it on with that yellow checked box. ..Now it tells me the damned thing can't initialize because of probably damage, and it needs to be reinstalled.
I consider all that you guys say as helpful info. I wanted to do a registry clean but the Micro Tech, said why, you just had a reformat. Two in fact in one week. Anyway, good night all, thanks again. It's appreciated.
