Due to whatever the problem is with my computer, I can no longer access windows in any capacity, including safe mode. This means I have no logs that I can post for assistance. For that I apologize.
A couple of days ago I got an error message alerting me that Windows had recovered from a serious error. I sent the error report and afterward the computer seemed to be functioning properly. The next morning I got the same error, but this time after sending the report the computer restarted itself. It got into some sort of cycle in which it would restart itself randomly. I had to leave for work, but I began an Avast boot-up scan before I left. I am using Avast 5 (the free version) and I believe my virus database was up to date at the time.
My girlfriend texted me later in the day saying the computer appeared normal. It was on the desktop, and the boot-up scan was no longer running. I initially figured the scan had completed normally and found no issues. When I got home and turned the computer back on it initially worked normally. After maybe 15 or 20 minutes it restarted itself again, and then entered into a cycle in which it would boot-up, get through the welcome screen, and then restart just about as soon as the desktop appeared. I was able to enter safe mode initially, but avast would not run in safe mode (I don't really know if that's supposed to be the case or not, I'm not incredibly computer savvy).
Eventually the computer began to restart itself while in safe mode as well. At this point I began to think I might have a hardware issue (and for all I know I still might, although I suspect some sort of infection). I attempted to use the PC diagnostic tool in PC Recovery, however this seemed to freeze or just run indefinitely and I finally stopped it. The computer did not restart during the diagnostic scanning process, I just manually turned it off after a while because it didn't seem to actually be doing anything. After that I attempted a system restore from the PC Recovery menu. Shortly after beginning the system restore the computer restarted. I have since also attempted a total reformat, but again the computer restarted.
Before the computer totally crapped out I was able to disable automatic restart, however this seemed to have little effect. Yesterday I finally got the stop error screen. Below is the error code I received.
0x00000050 (0xF174EB30, 0x00000000, 0xF730B2E6, 0x00000000)
The message indicated that the problem seemed to originate from ntfs.sys.
Now the computer cannot access Windows in any capacity. If I try to turn it on it won't even run safe mode and tells me that the file mentioned above, ntfs.sys, is damaged or corrupted. I looked this problem up and found an article stating that if this happened the only fix was to reformat and reinstall the OS. It was at this point that I attempted the full reformat, which failed when the computer restarted itself again.
I hope I've been able to provide as much information as possible about the nature of my problems. Like I said, I'm no computer genius, and I cannot provide any logs. I'm currently taking college courses online, and I have an e-textbook on that computer that I don't want to have to pay for again if possible. One other item of note: (although this might simply be coincidence) my girlfriend works at the main library of the university in town and informed me that several of their computer had issues at the same time as mine. She told me that she suspected the online class system might have been the source of the infection. While my classes are located at a different address, they use the same program. I dealt with two infections earlier in the year, after which I changed my surfing habits in an attempt to avoid sites that might be more likely to infect my computer. The last two infections occurred in a short time span, both during my online classes. During the summer I had no classes, nor did I have any computer problems. This semester just started a week ago, and now I potentially have an infection again. Is there any chance that the two are related? I would certainly hope my school is not the problem, but I've become paranoid about malware and the netbook I'm posting this from also runs on Windows (the problem computer is Windows XP and this netbook is Windows 7 starter fwiw), so I'm leery of logging into my classes from this computer without knowing if that was the cause.
Thanks in advance for anyone who is willing to sift through this admittedly long post and can offer me any degree of assistance. I'll be happy to answer any questions that I can to help provide additional information to help diagnose or hopefully fix my poor compy.
