you didn't fry your computer trying to install Ubuntu, it is not a
virus! You need to get to the BIOs setup screen?
Usually using F2 when you first start the computer. Note the HP splash
screen has text at the bottom telling you what keys you need to hit to
get into bios.
I bought a Toshiba 305 that locked up with 8.04 until I turned off the
LAN card. Then it worked like a charm.
I loaded Ubuntu and then tried turning the card back on only to have
the system lock up again, simply put Ubuntu didn't accept the LAN card
so I had to leave it turned off. You will need to boot on the CD
drive, this is a BIOs call as the boot order is set in bios, so change
your boot order in bios to start with the CD rather than the HD, then
you will be able to reload the OS using the CD. My guess is that grub
may be your problem, as windows has no control over a system unless it
is loaded by the boot loader, it matters little that Microsoft has a
problem with Linux. Another question is did you give up some windows
space on your hard drive before you installed ubuntu? This also gave
me a problem when I was trying to dual boot. You will notice in other
posts, when using an older windows OS like XP, that you may need
another program to shrink the space given to windows. There are open
source or free programs listed on the Ubuntu web site under installing
ubuntu.