| Trouble with virus's is they also head straight for the system restore area as well. Normaly the windows restore location rather than the manufacture restore partition but they will get in there as well.
I think your right though this is just another problem, if the hour glass is still going and you have to switch off when you turn on again press F8 contiunsly at start-up to try and boot into safe mode, this boots with the minimal drivers and services and may allow you to repair/restore your laptop.
Craig |