So apparently my computer has either died or is in serious trouble

Viruses and worms
1

This is what happened: One day I opened my Avast to do the old routine of scan the computer.

I clicked on the Update Icon.

All of a sudden, it began taking longer than usual and the computer hung up. I had to restart it.

I scanned the computer this time. I finished scanning. There were no viruses found.

The next day I turned on the computer.

It was over.

It would go as far as loading the desktop but that was it. If you tried doing anything, it wouldn’t do it. Like opening Firefox for example. It would just stay there frozen and you could hear the processor making this rhythmic sound like it was thinking, but it was a stable repetitive sound, as if something had gotten caught.

I tried restarting it several times but it was the same thing. It would load the desktop but then it wouldn’t do anything else.

So my two questions are:

  1. What’s the general procedure to run a Safe Mode type of scan? I noticed that when I start the computer, it doesn’t tell me which key I should hit to run it on Safe Mode. Or if that’s not what you recommend me to do, what would you recommend?

  2. I currently bought a MacBook Pro. I know people love saying that Macs don’t get virus nor Spyware, but I"m skeptical. Do you recommend any particular anti spyware program for mac? As for antivirus, I got Avast for Mac.

I appreciate the time you take to read through this.

2
It would just stay there frozen and you could hear the processor making this rhythmic sound like it was thinking, but it was a stable repetitive sound, as if something had gotten caught.

More likely the hard disk.

Here’s how you can get into Safe Mode.

If you can boot into Safe Mode (or last known good) run a disk check.

  1. Click Start, and then Run.
  2. In Open, type cmd, and then press ENTER.
  3. To repair errors, locate bad sectors, and recover readable information, at the command prompt, type chkdsk volume:/r, and then press ENTER.

Note If one or more of the files on the hard disk are open, you will receive the following message:
Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be checked the next time the system restarts? (Y/N)
Type Y, and then press ENTER to schedule the disk check, and then restart your computer to start the disk check.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315265

But it still may be that your HD is dead/dying.

3

Thank you. I will try that.