You should first check if the Security Center service can start, and if not - which one of its dependencies is to blame. Look also for error messages in the Event Viewer.
If you have the feeling that your computer is infected, possible solutions may be :
- How to Repair Windows 7 System Files with System File Checker.
- Startup Repair : How To Easily Repair Windows 7 Boot Problems Using Startup Repair.
- The last resort is to reformat the hard disk and reinstall Windows.
In your case, this might apply : Performing an HP System Recovery in Windows Vista.
Just to remark that Windows is quite capable of destroying itself without any help, which is why Windows Update is more dangerous than any virus. Startup Repair may fix the problem in this case by reinitializing Windows, without requiring the applications to be reinstalled.
If you realy think the problem is rather that of a virus, and you wish to know more about what is happening on your computer, you will need to find out two things :
- What change is being done to your system,
- What program does this change.
For the first one, if it is a registry change, then the key is probably HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System, item EnableLUA, whose value is 0 for Disabling and 1 for Enabling.
Once you have located the change being done to your system, you can use Process Monitor and its Enable Boot Logging option (see help) to log all accesses to the key.
I would first boot in Safe mode, and see if this is also happening. If not, then another attack-vector is to use Autoruns to disable startup items in a binary search for the product (since this might be a legitimate product causing the problem, rather than a virus).
Dont use Process Monitor for that. Use like @DavidPostill suggested VirusTotal but without manually sending files. Process Explorer from SysInternals has built in VirusTotal functionality. Just go to Options -> VirusTotal.com -> Check VirusTotal.com and a column with the header VirusTotal will appear. After a few seconds you will get the VirusTotal rating for each executable.
From Process Explorer you can directly kill the malicious process or find out to which Windows Service started this process and stop and disable this service. This is a good way to do, beacuse if you kill the process the underlying service might immediately recreate the malicious process. To find out the service for a process double-click the process and go to the Services tab.
Best Answer
If possible, you should attempt to only insert the drive into a secondary PC running some live version of a linux distro, preferably one you wouldn't mind completely wiping afterwards.
If not, just cut your losses and physically destroy the pendrive. USB viruses are extremely efficient these days, and are more frequently able to persist in hardware between wipes (either on small partitions on the pendrive, or by loading themselves into the firmware of the infected machines hardware).
Examples:
-badUSB
--- SRLabs badUSB BlackHat Slides
-UEFI rootkits
--- Hacking Team write up on TrendMicro
To more directly answer your question: No, there is no way to insert the drive into any new machine and assume it hasn't infected it at some level.
If you need to view the files on the drive (maybe so you know what you've lost / so you can physically print and recreate them by by hand), I'd recommend viewing them on your already infected machine after unplugging any network cables, since it can't really get any worse.