Notebook wont startup

Okay. I was running a HP Pavillion Entertainment Notebook PC that I purchased several years ago. I had apparently had a virus so I installed AVG yesterday and set it up just as its setup on my home pc. I ran AVG and it detected two trojans but it said it would require a restart to clean them. I restarted it, I left it alone and figured it'd be ready to go this afternoon, but unfortunately no go. Windows starts normally and then I get to the blue xp log welcome screen then it goes to my desktop background picture with no icons. Cursor moves, but nothing else comes up. After a few minutes the computer goes back to the blue welcome screen then pulls up the hpowner Icon that I can click on. It then says "Loading Personal Settings", it flashes to my desktop background(sometimes I can see the picture and sometimes it flashes by too quickly to see) , then it says saving your personal settings. I have tried to access it using save mode and start windows normally, to no avail. I am very fond of this notebook, you can say I have bonded with it....maybe that seems kinda weird. I have used this site in the past to download fikes, but now I am prostating myself before you tech gurus, in the hopes you can share your vast knowledge of computers with me.