I thought I would bring this to someone's attention before I did something
stupid--again. :(

I'm going to talk with my I.T. supervisor at my school later Monday afternoon.

It started Saturday night... I downloaded a file and scanned it first after
it downloaded it with my anti-virus software.  It was in a .rar folder, so
when I saw that there were no errors, I opened the .rar folder and clicked on
the file itself and scanned it again. Nothing.  No errors, viruses, or
malware.  So I thought, at least.

I opened it and everything seemed fine.  Then my FireFox started to receive
errors as did my internet explorer and my anti-virus program.  I can't open
FireFox anymore, nor can I open my anti virus software so I can properly scan
my system.

Also, my system (CPU) runs at %100 all the time, according to my task
manager.  So when I click on something, it takes forever for it to open up.

Maybe this was stupid of me, but I decided it would be best to start the
computer in safe mode in an attempt to use the anti-virus software.  

Now, only the prompt comes up saying that an error has occurred.  It gave me
options to start windows normally or to start in safe mode--but no dice.  I
won't let me do either now.  Or anything else--after 30 seconds, it restarts,
and it does it over again.  :/

What in blazes happen?  Is there anything I can do?  

Now, I can do an non-destructive system recovery, but I'm afraid another
"error" will occur and then I'm really screwed.  All my pictures, word files
and videos will go up and smoke--it's happened before.  I didn't have a
chance to back-up everything properly either.  Which was idiotic and I deeply
regret it.

Should I proceed with the non-destructive system recovery?  If it's
successful, I will still have all my files.
 

Stuck & Worried,
Pikey