It could be that the purpose of your laptop may serve as a warning to others

Trojan.

No, not the condoms you sick bastards. I was downloading a video clip from an emailed group I belong to and was horrified to learn that I downloaded a Trojan hidden in the video file. Now, I knew I was screwed. I saved as much information as I could to some recordable CDs, but as far as the computer system goes, it was toast. I lost the NT bootloader (most trojans attack this vital system startup registry) and thought that was the end of it.

Right now I am using the laptop running Ubuntu Linux with no problem. Almost all trojans and viruses are created to kill Windows operating systems but are harmless to Linux/ Mac. I've got a portal to the world, but when I get home, I gotta wipe the entire laptop and start from scratch. This includes security patches, updates, program reloads -- unless...

Well, I did it once before. Lost the NT bootloader trying to get Ubuntu to load Windows first. Then I remembered that since the operating system was there already and the bad bootloader was infected, Ubuntu would write a new bootloader in place of the old one. It worked. I now have my dualboot back up and running with no problems.

The lesson learned from all of this? Download your videos from a TRUSTED website, not from an emailed newsgroup. Hey, remember, even the most computer savvy can fall prey to trojans.