Hi there. I'm going to apologize in advance for my lack of technical lingo.

I have an older model HP laptop, and I recently acquired a virus that is meant to look like it's some sort of windows security feature, only I'm smarter than that! and I've seen 'em before, so what I would normally do is reboot in safe mode and do a system restore or run spybot to get rid of it.

well, not this time. I can reboot the computer fine normally, except nothing works except for this fake windows security.

I reboot in safe mode, and it goes fine until I open up system restore or spybot - the computer shuts off.

I'm trying to see if there's anything I can do before having to wipe it clean.

Thank you! this is a tricky little bugger - at least I think so!!