xp startup freezing progressively sooner; only works in safe mode. What to do??

I have run spyware detector 2.0, max registry cleaner, ccleaner. No change. I looked at the install/uninstall list and nothing looks suspicious.

When it hangs up, the CPU is quiet (on the task manager screen), and the hard drive light stays on constantly.

This occurred a day or so after downloading a financial e-book and .exe file, which I have no specific reason to suspect, and some general surfing.

The first time it hung up I could check task manager, and it looked like the winss.exe file was constantly on, so I ended it, but later, it happened anyway and sooner, without winss.exe running, and now it hangs up before I can check task manager.

What to do next???

Thanks

 

Welcome to MajorGeeks.com,

Do the following. Go to the READ & RUN ME FIRST and follow all the instructions that apply to your operating system. As you work through this, you will find you are already getting some help with the symptoms. When you're finished, someone will look through your logs to see if there is anything still remaining that needs to be fixed. If you have any questions, just ask. When you finish, please attach the requested logs to your next post.

 

Thanks for the response. I don't seem to be able to get on the internet in the safe mode in order to download the recommended programs. It also now seems to be taking longer to boot even in safe mode.

Should I get an external drive, attach it to another computer and download the programs, then attach it to the safe mode computer and run the programs from there?

 

If you are unable to connect to the Internet, use another computer to download the tools and then install them on the infected computer.