Have you tried detaching all peripherals and removing any PCMCIA cards prior to booting?

Being as how "sample.exe" is a frequent byproduct of some forms of the Nimda virus, I'll inquire as to whether you've run a virus scan recently, and whether your AV application is up to date.  Have you tried searching for "sample.exe" on the system to determine where this file is located?  (This can be done from Safe Mode.)

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.nimda.e@mm.html

Hi,

Flooby's recommendation is a good one! If you decide to reformat and start over I recommend you baseline your system. In fact, everyone should know what their baseline performance is. As things begin to change on an XP system it is REALLY valuable to be able to compare baseline performance with current system performance.

And by the way, it's really easy to do.

Michael

Microsoft expert community member
Fighting spyware, viruses, & malware

Hi Doogie,

It might be easier if I send you over to an article I recently wrote that discusses how to baseline a system. It's a really short read but I think you'll see why it is so important to baseline your PC. It makes it SO much easier to find trouble down the road. Or to compare how a PC is currently running to how it ran when it was new.

I discuss how to baseline your PC in my "Fighting Spyware, and Malware" article.

One of things we've learned over the years is that if you don't baseline a PC system you never have a point of reference. Baseline provides an all important point of reference.

Michael