Laptop rises from the dead

Well the good news is my laptop is not completely trashed!

Here is the old news: 2 christmases ago, andy bought me my Canon.  His brother knew this and thought he'd be helpful by giving me photoshop that christmas to edit my awesome new pictures.  He did not tell me he pirated it off an awful website (my mom had a legitimate copy of an earlier version i could have used instead) he installed it and the next day i opened my computer and had thousands of pop-ups that wouldnt stop.  This computer had all of my essays, pictures, music, resumes, etc since i graduated.  He said "oh, thats right, thats about when i got my virus, i didnt know it was from the photoshop"  He said he would fix it.  About 6 months of nagging him to fix my computer because it was completely useless that entire time (yeah, it took that long, i wasnt happy), he finally said he would put my photos and music on an external hard drive and wipe the whole thing.  Well i got it back and when i turn it on it is a black screen w/white writing and you have the option for the 2 windows XP's.  If you click on professional it goes to my desktop background and nothing else.  Not even a start menu.

 I have been without it for a year and a half now and decided to turn it on.. Well, andy found out that if you do ctrl alt delete, the task mgr comes up.  You can then hit open task and then browse and all my stuff comes up.  When you click on one, my normal desktop background comes up with all the folders and stuff.  YAY it isnt gone!  The bad news is that he found my resumes, which was not one of the things i had davey save...which means he didnt wipe it properly so i am waiting for it to fail again soon. The lack of pop-ups could be because i dont have it connected to wi-fi.

My awesome friend from high school Sean (you may remember him from my Portland post a few days ago) has worked for microsoft, then was independent IT consultant, and now works at microsoft again.  I trust that he actually knows what he is doing since microsoft would hire him back right away, so he said he would wipe it all and put my mom's new windows 7 on it.  He also knows how to install ram because mine only comes with like 500MB. Plus he will put a non-virused photoshop on there. WOOT!!!  I am excited because i wont have to buy a new laptop, i will get it all for free, and ram was pretty cheap from what i saw looking at best buy.

Moral of the story: Just because someone says they know what they are doing, doesn't mean they do.