I use a Toshiba laptop and it has a Recovery partition to factory reset the computer, but you would need to back up your personal stuff first and any programs you have installed will need to be reinstalled - and leave well alone any tune up programs that rely on "cleaning" your registry as you could end up with a brick - and that includes ASC.
To factory reset tap F8 as you switch on then select Repair your Computer and navigate to the Recovery Environment where restoring the HDD is usually the last option, being usually the final solution.
You'll get various warnings but once it starts just leave it to do its thing and you'll have an out of the box laptop along with all of the bloatware.
My Toshiba came with a trial version of McAfee which needs to be uninstalled correctly first if you wish to use another AV program.
I use IOBit Uninstaller to remove the bloatware and anything I want a deep clean of, although there's also a program called PC Decrapifier but I don't know if this just uses Windows own uninstaller which leaves a lot of residue in the registry.
StartUpLite is also another program you can use to vet the Startup menu which will assist your boot up time and lessen the load on the memory.
I've provided the links for each program at the bottom of this post, but before clicking on Next or Install, carefully look for any boxes to uncheck so that you don't get any unwanted bundled software.
Toshiba also provides a facility for creating a one-off set of OEM disks which is a copy of the Recovery partition.
That's called Toshiba Recovery Media Creator and you'll find that in the Toshiba folder - that will use two DVDs which you should keep very safe.
Sometimes after a factory reset, you can make another set but within the same install you only get the option to work once.
You can boot up with these to factory reset should you not be able to through the route I've described.
You would also need to use these should you ever lose the Repair your Computer option in the Advanced Boot options.
But before you go to the extremes of a factory reset but after you have created the OEM Recovery disks, go Start - type
cmd.exe and right click on cmd then select Run as administrator - accept the UAC and at the prompt enter
chkdsk /fYou will be prompted to enter
y for the disk check to execute on the next boot - type and enter
exit to close the command window then reboot and let it do its thing which can take a while depending on how much damage and how much it will or can repair.
If it fails, let us know what the error message is.
The machine should reboot to the normal window on completion and its full report can be viewed in Event Viewer.
To view this go Start - type
eventvwr and when that is highlighted, press enter.
Wait until it has read the logs then expand Window Logs and click on Application - Action - Find and type
chkdsk or
wininit into the Find box and press enter.
Cancel the Find box and use the scrollable window to read the report.
If chkdsk is successful and your computer is back to normal, I would strongly advise you to start creating regular system images to external media such as an external HDD or DVDs and then if it gets screwed up again, you will have something to restore it with rather than having to go all of the way back to scratch.
http://www.iobit.com/advanceduninstaller.php - although if you have ASC installed then you should already have this program.
http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/https://www.malwarebytes.org/startuplite/One other thing to consider is if you've picked up adware which can also affect IE and checking to see if it will work without add-ons is something to try.
Go Start - All Programs - Accessories - System Tools - Internet Explorer (No Add-ons)
Clicking on the home page icon should get you back to the normal home page.
While MBAM may pick up adware, AdwCleaner is a better program and follow that up with Junkware Removal Program whose link is lower down the AdwCleaner web page.
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/adwcleaner/BTW - What are you using to post ?
