Just Your Standard Blue Screen of Death

So, we were enjoying an evening of watching the Saints go to 7-0 on MNF, not by turning to ESPN -- but by clicking on sketchy Justin.tv links -- all while downloading torrents from Mininova -- when everything shuts down and goes into an endless reboot cycle.
Even though we use Norton Antivirus and Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware simultaneously, our first thoughts went to viruses.  At the very least, we mentally prepared to pay hundreds in repair costs.  Choosing to reboot in Safe Mode, all drivers load until a "Press ESC to skip SPTD.sys" prompt appears.  No matter what is pressed, the endless reboot cycle continues.

Another startup option for our Lenovo T61 is the ThinkVantage Rescue and Recovery module, a Linuxy OS that you can run when Windows will not.  With the visuals of a drunken Windows 95, this program allows you to back up your files, diagnose hardware problems, and even open an Opera browser.  However, deleting files is not straightforward with this program.  Even though the hardware diagnostics indicated that the SMBIOS was not functional (whatever that means) lots of online advice indicated removing SPTD.sys was the right move.  SPTD.sys is a driver associated with Daemon tools, a great program for loading CD image files.  We've ran the program for years with no problems, but some info online indicates this file is troublesome at times.

We were able to delete the offending file by using the file back up utility -- which before starting the backup gives you an option to delete whatever files you want.  After doing this, Windows was able to start up normally, even if we get the feeling we are living on borrowed time.