Virus has killed Windows

First, my system slowed down to a crawl. Then Avast warned me about some suspicious files found by the heuristic method. Options were to delete or ignore. I chose the recommended option to Ignore, but I also left the check-mark in the box to report these files to Avast.

I expected that Avast would run during the re-boot process and clean my system of viruses. But, instead, I got completely locked out of Windows. My system just keeps rebooting.

The moment it tries to start Windows, I get an blue screen warning that "A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer. Check for viruses/ Remove any newly installed hard drives or hard drive controllers. Run CHKDSK /F to check for hard drive corruption.
Technical information:
*** STOP: 0x0000007B (0xF88EC528,0xC0000034,0x00000000.0x00000000)

The problem is: I can’t do any of these things, because I can’t even get to a command level. Even “Safe Mode” doesn’t work. No matter how I try to reboot, all I get is the same blue screen, followed by an immediate automatic re-boot.

Any suggestions, other than re-installing Windows and all my programs from scratch?

I’d try one of these rescue disks. Boot from the CD and run a scan. You’ll need to download and burn the disk image on another computer, obviously.

http://dnl-eu10.kaspersky-labs.com/devbuilds/RescueDisk/kav_rescue_2008.iso
http://dlpro.antivir.com/down/vdf/rescuecd/rescuecd.exe
http://download.bitdefender.com/rescue_cd/BitDefenderRescueCD_v2.0.0_07_08_2008.iso
http://www.f-secure.com/linux-weblog/files/f-secure-rescue-cd-release-3.00.zip