My laptop's antivirus (the free Microsoft one) just told me last night I have a virus on the computer. It says it gets rid of it but every time I rescan it's on there still. My computers fan sounds like a jet engine throttling for takeoff, and it's all moving so slow.

I fucking hate computers and the worthless scum that create virus's to damage them.

There are other reasons for that error message.
I was getting that every once in a while on one PC and with coincidental irony I got it again yesterday.

Normally for unknown reasons your Bios on the MB changes the boot order device meaning your C drive has been demoted and another hard drive, DVD rom or even floppy has been put in the number one boot position and because there is no Windows OS it says it is missing the NTLDR.

Click restart then when you see your first MB page starting tapping Del key.
It will show the BIOS screen
Use the  right arrow to move over to boot and once in there look to see if your C drive is in the first position.
If anything else is in that first position click on that object then scroll down and click disable and keep doing that to other crap until your hard drive is in the number one position then click F10 and save the changes.

However, you may have a failure and it could be the MB or more likely the Hard Drive and whatever if you get it started back up everything to another drive.
It could also be something as simple as a glitch caused a fragment to be erased in the wrong spot by bad luck and you would have to repair it or reinstall the entire OS a guessing game and frustrating

If that does not work order a new hard drive or buy one locally, disconnect your current HD and install your OS on the new drive.
After that is done reconnect your old drive and turn it on. your old drive will be a slave and some programs will have to be reisntalled some may work, try the start icon in each program folder to see before reinstalling every one.

My one PC did this on and off and I would go in and reset the boot priority but yesterday it did it and would not stop. So, I took an old hard drive and formatted it and installed XP on that then reconnected all the other drives and everything is there I just have to reinstall a bunch of stuff, no fun but the data is not gone just out of reach for the moment.

this can mean your PC is on its last leg and if you get or build a new PC just make the current HDs slaves (They now becomes slaves automatically)

LMK if I was not clear about anything and I will try again

Wulfmann

Free method:
http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop

This a free Linux operating system that will run right from the CD and doesn't have to be installed

There are links to instructions on the lower right corner of the page.

Here is a direct link showing how to make bootable 'live' CD or DVD

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/burn-a-dvd-on-windows

Boot from the CD, and it will give you a regular looking desktop, then click on your main hard drive to see if you can still see your files. If you can see them, just copy them to a USB stick or burn DVD's


$20 make you holler method:

buy an adapter from Newegg that will allow you to remove the dead hard drive and plug it into a USB adapter that will connect to any other computer.
I have this one and use it all the time:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812156102

I called Sony, they said they "should" have some XP restore discs available, but they need your serial number to be 100% certain.

NTLDR missing -

First Step - make an image (copy of the disk)  Active disk image is a good tool. If you have another machine make a bootable USB stick, boot the dead PC, get a USB dock with another hard drive, and copy the HDD.
                 This will ensure that you get to keep your photos.
Second step is try to repair the disk. If you are lucky enough and have a OS CD or rescue CD you should run Check disk and try to repair "chkdsk /f. Active boot disk might have HDD repair stuff on it.

Let me know if disk repair does not work, there are several more steps you can try to repair the Master Boot Record, for now start simple.

I've been fucking around with downloading shit, trying to burn ISO's that I cant find...and getting frustrated and confused.

Computers are nothing more then expensive consumables.

Frustrated, fuck this. Lap top going in the trash. I feel like I am going to ruin another computer downloading and extracting shit.

Lesson learned, going to back up when I buy a new lap top. $600.00 hunk of fucking shit.