Help! XP will not load!!!

I know this is a cross-post but I am pretty desperate. I wasn't sure which forum it was best to post this. The other one is in the ASUS forum. As soon as I start getting responses to my query on one thread I will delete the other.

So, last week, while I was browsing through the internet, Adobe installed an update on the reader and in the process, shutdown and then restarted. When the Asus came back up, I could not connect it to the internet through the DSL line. I looked at device manager, everything seemed fine. This had happened once before not too long ago. So I tried to re-enable the wireless and connect that way. It did not work. I tried dial-up connection -- that did not work. Looking at the device manager, I have a VPN I usually keep disabled. I tried to disable and re-enable the wireless. It was disabled but it would not re-enable. Finally I shut down the machine and then started it. When it started and I went to device manager -- now all the networking devices showed they were working when they weren't when I shut it down (and the wireless and the VPN should have remained disabled) but when I tried to turn on the wireless connection -- it said no supported adapter. I have the INTEL Wireless Pro.

Again nothing worked. So I shut it down again and turned it back on -- this time it gave me an option to go into safe mode -- but I had no idea what to do -- so it it defaulted into normal mode and loaded.

From then on the ASUS would never complete the shutting down process -- it would hang at the last step. The only way I could get it to turn off was by "hard" shutting it down by pressing and holding down the power button.

I uninstalled the Adobe completely -- but that did not help.

Since I have been extremely busy at work, I decided to let it go for the moment and use my other laptop, my HP which is working just fine.

I still used the ASUS to watch DVDs and that was fine but I always had to "hard" shut it down when I wanted to turn it off.

Tonight I had a little bit of time and tried to figure out what I could do. I tried a system restore, back to a few points before the Adobe download. I waited, it did its thing -- it showed it was doing the restore on a box on the screen and then it started to shut down -- and again it hung up at the same last point. Just in case I let it hang there for about 5 minutes and then finally I hard shut it down.

Now I try to turn it on and Windows won't even load now. It just stays a black screen (and no it is not the screen) The hard drive doesn't seem to be working at all.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Through all this, I have been using ESET's safe security.

 

Can you enter in the bios?
Check boot-order and see if the system sees the hard drive...

Can you enter in safe mode?
If yes delete adobe reader and use a cleaner as ccleaner to delete old entries from registry

Maybe its some kind of conflict software or a virus...
But adobe is well known to full pcs with thousand of useless auto-updating programs...

 

Nothing even showed up on the screen.... but all of a sudden it loaded after being shut down for 20 minutes and it completed the restore and everything is fine including the wireless access and shutting down properly... I will never figure this one out....

 

I know its a shot in the dark, but look in your registry for a program called Bonjour. Its some Apple borne "malware" that is known to sometimes screw up internet connections, and Adobe recently has been including it in many of their products. Perhaps you have one, or Adobe is spreading the disease.