hp dv6000,boot issues, hard drive question,recovery

HP DV6000,Windows XP,2 years old
recent issues b4 current NON BOOT STATUS:
Avast antivirus had been picking up some files that couldnt be deleted
I was getting popups...
comp. would start up on its own from hibernation state after a few minutes...this was happening for about 4-5 days

I started to clean it up
scans, spyware scans, hijack this
defrag

returned home after a couple days.
when it would not boot from its hibernatory state

Black Screen: offered 3 safe modes and normal modes.>all of which resulted in a blue screen that appeared only for a few seconds asking me about potential changes in software and antivirus i think

I put the recovery image on an external drive.

I am having issues burning that to DVD.
(using a friends hp dv9000 laptop)
stops due to Buffer Limit error (i think that is what it said)
CAN I USE CDS OR DVDS FOR RECOVERY DISCS
tried nero,sonic,avs...(one of them said it couldnt fit it on a 4.7 dvd+r....I dont know why it would just make a set of discs as such)

Recovery=10.3 gigs of files

So I tried to see if I could install UNBUNTU (5.1 Linux)...it had a Boot error during the installation.

I do not think the Hard Drive is screwed...

I transferred most of the important data prior to this implosion...but I wanted to obtain a few more things.

If i need to get a new hard drive: can I only upgrade to a 160gig 2.5"
part # 438485-001
and is it true this model only takes 2 gigs of ram?

I am so very thankful for any and all help regarding this...I am stressed over this and want to enjoy this time of year....my birthday is coming soon too...I live in ohio...ok thats enough about me for now....THANK YOU

 

Sounds like your blue screens are the works of a virus most likely, since you are getting pop-ups and avast picking up files. The best way to get the viruses out of the computer is to take the hard drive out of the machine and scan it on another computer. After you scan and remove and viruses found on the drive, if the machine still blue screens use a OEM Windows XP disc that should have came with the computer when purchased, press 'R' at the first screen. This takes you into the recovery console, command line...

In the command line you will choose the hard disk where windows is installed (usually will be choice #1, C:\WINDOWS)....

If the Administrator account has a password you will need to type it in...if you dont know if it does or not try leaving it blank, you have 3 chances before it locks you out.

After you log in, type chkdsk /r This will repair errors on the disk and can be sucessful to getting you to boot into windows.

Removing the viruses along may be able to get into windows, but you're not out of the woods yet, spyware, adware, rootkits may still be on the machine. I recommend Spybot Search & Destroy, works great for me, may have to run the scan again at boot time, but has a pretty good turnover rate as far as finding. Even if spybot has problems deleting items found you can "Jump to Location" and be able to delete or manipulate files and registry keys.

If removing the viruses and running chkdsk /r still doesn't correct the booting problem you can attempt a windows repair (2nd Repair option on Windows CD) However in many cases computers with recovery partitions prevents the Windows CD from giving you the 2nd repair option as it detects 2 windows installations.

In this case you would want to run the system reovery by pressing F10, F11, Ctrl+F11, and in some cases F1. Windows Vista is F8, and Choose Repair My Computer, choose Last option which may read similar to "eMachines Recovery Console"

To answer you question about burning:

If you have made an image of the Recovery partition you will have to "span" the image over a series of CD's or DVD's. I know for a fact that Roxio has this feature. Only problem you may encounter is that you will not be able to boot to these discs in this case, and may have trouble restoring this image, as some software will freak out when you switch disks.

Worst case here you wont have the recovery media to make it easy getting all the drivers and software that came with your computer. HP can be a pain to find the drivers and software that came with your computer, but recent models are usually not an issue...although im sure someone can probably prove me wrong on that ;-)

You will need an OEM Windows XP disc to reinstall windows, cant use Upgrade discs, windows setup will reject your product key. Likewise check to make sure you have your sticker with the 25-digit product key before you erase any partitions or hard drives.