Stupid Computer....

So I recently encountered a virus... Which really only happened because about a week before I got it my computer wouldn't start up... It would get the log in screen or just the desktop picture or somewhere inbetween, but it just wouldn't start. After much frustration I discovered where the problem was. It was in one of the Service Applications that windows uses to start up. This particular one was from the company Symantec... the company that makes Norton Anti-Virus. So I disabled it thinking that it was just some little part of the program and that I still had my Anti-Virus up. I guess I was wrong... Because obviously it was not working... I suddenly found myself with a rather nasty virus called AntiVirus 2009. Which is in fact not anti-virus at all... just a program that does evil things to your computer. Including: random pop-ups, randomly losing internet connection or having limited internet speed, super slow cpu reaction times, random application icons on my desktop, sudden computer crashes and then failed reboots...
As you can see this spyware was a major issue and was extremely hard to try and get rid of because of what it does. I downloaded nearly every spyware program out there to try and get rid of it... but the free ones kept crashing (probably caused by the virus) or they just didn't find it. The ones that did find it...well that is all they did. You had to pay around 30$ for the program to be able to remove it.
I was talking to my dad about it asking him what I should do and he said that Dell has a kind of master reset that can be used one time to reset the computer to the way you got it from the factory. So I researched that and sure enough it exists :) So now all I had to do was push Ctrl + F11 at the BIOS screen when the computer starts. So I shut my laptop down and restart it, fingers ready on the buttons...didn't work...so I tried it again...didn't work... Now I am uspet and frustrated even more, trying to figure out why I am failing. Then I decided to turn on those services I disabled before to get my computer to start because this master reset is apparently also made by Symantec. And miraculously it works!!! Well sort of... I get to the screen where it asks if I am sure I want to do it and I say 'yes'. Gets to about 1% and says that it failed... how does the MASTER RESET just fail? I'm still really confused about that... I try a couple more times and still nothing....how sad.... So I decide it best to move on and find another solution.
Eventually I decided it would be best to just back up any files that I may need and then format my laptop. My roommate Nathan Fowles had a Windows Service Pack 2 CD that he kindly let me use to reformat my computer and reload Windows. Finally I got rid of the virus... Unfortunately I also got rid of a bunch of other things that come with laptops... The CD he gave me was one for a desktop computer... I didn't know there was a difference, and maybe there isn't but I was missing a lot of things I liked... like my wireless, my bluetooth mouse, the correct screen resolution, and more... So I searched and searched online for any solutions to my individual problems and eventually found out that I needed to instal Drivers for lots of the hardware in my laptop. So I went searching for those and as I found drivers I randomly installed them hoping they would work for my laptop... I was also trying to get all my other stuff moved back to my computer. I was slowly getting my computer back to normal. Fixed the screen after a while, to the correct resolution. A little before that I was able to get my wireless card working. I continued finding and downloading and realized that for some reason my laptop was going like 10 times slower than it was when it had the virus... which is not good. So I resolve to go to dells website and hope they have a list of what hardware is actually in my computer because I don't remember. Sure enough after some searching and digging I the specs for my computer. Yay :) It even has a place on dells website that I can download the drivers just for my computer. Thank heaven I found them. Apparantly I had also been installing a ton of ones I didn't need. So I installed all the ones from dell and still my poor mouse would not work. I tried seeking help on forums and all over the internet to no avail :( After hours and hours (been at this for about 4 days now, since the virus) of work reinstalling and searching my computer is practically frozen and my mouse still doesn't work. Crap. Now what? So I decided to save all those drivers designed for my laptop to a file on my new 500GB external hardrive. Then I grab the CD again and start over... hopefully going to do it right this time.
So it takes about 2.5 hours to reformat my laptop and reisntall windows on it. Then I immediately start loading the drives. Before ANYTHING else. Sure enough, after I am done with all about 12 of them I restart my computer and hope for the best. It boots up fine, and fast :) so I pair my mouse with my computer and then as it says it is completed (did that before) I tentitavely reach for the mouse... close my eyes and tap it... YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The mouse moved!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am completely overjoyed :) :) :) :) :) :) :D :D :D :D :D YAY!!!!!!!! and everything else seems to be working too. So then I installed Norton Anti-Virus, and a couple other programs and now it is working fine :D yay!!! Hopefully this will last and I won't have to wrestle my computer again anytime soon.