Toshiba Laptop, will not shutdown or launch programs

Hello,

Two weeks ago I came back from a trip, and my laptop stopped working correctly. Prior to flying home, the laptop worked great.

It has hung on startup twice and always hangs on shutdown, forcing me to hold the power button.

Device manager says everything is working correctly.

Windows will not launch any programs, whether it be windows explorer, google chrome or IE. If I bring up the task manager, it shows no applications running, but IE, explorer and chrome all show up as processes.

I tried running a scan with Mcafee, but all it does is say scanning and stall at 0%. I have also tried running windows update, but the few times I have gotten it to come up it has also stalled at 0% on download.

My first thought was that something was loose. I checked the hard drive and memory, but neither are loose. Nor is there any damage noticeable to the case.

The original Toshiba hard drive died and was replaced by a Hitachi about a year ago. The laptop is about two years old.

Any ideas? Thank you in advance!

A little more info:

I can open "libraries", but nothing populates, no folders or files. Windows 7 will come up when I put it in the disk drive, and asks to start the installation process.

It has internet access, but won't do anything with that internet access. In addition, task manager shows low CPU and memory usage.

This seems like a HDD failure to me...but hopefully I am wrong.

One of the times I attempted to shut the laptop down, it said I had an unofficial version of windows, or some such thing.

Do you have MucAfee AV program, which is the source of endless problems we see here? It is worse than an infection. I'd replace it with Microsoft Security Essentials. How to uninstall supported McAfee products using the Consumer Products Removal tool (MCPR)

Then work through these Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7 reporting back results.

I'd definitely run the HD Diagnostics with Disk Check and RAM test to check hardware right away.

Yes, I can boot into safe mode.

Yes, Mcafee...which apparently is not well liked. I will look at better alternatives, and check out Microsoft security essentials.

I am running the system file checker in safe mode command prompt, will post results whenever it finishes.

Remove MucAfee first, running the special tool required for such a horrible infection.

This alone often will solve the problem.

File checker ran, no errors found. Removing mcafee AV...though it looks like it is hanging on the uninstall.

Follow the instructions in How to uninstall or reinstall supported McAfee products using the Consumer Products Removal tool (MCPR)

A big thank you to you Greg. I followed those instructions and now my laptop works like it is supposed to. Pretty sad that Mcafee was the cause of my problems. Thanks again!

Always is.

You're most welcome.