AT&T Galaxy S3 - Please help - S3 will not turn on after attempted rebooting

[Kalia A]

Hi
Today I tried to access my Playstore app and it would not open, then after restarting my phone I received the error message "unfortunately com.google.process.gapps has stopped working" or something like that. I was told by a friend that I had a virus and needed to restore my phone to its factory setting. I attempted to by selecting the option in my Settings, then the phone turned off and turned back on and asked me to pick one of several options using the volume buttons to select and the power button to choose that option. I clicked the first one, which was "recovery" I think, and the phone restarted.
However, now it won't load past the blue-glowing Samsung logo. I've tried removing the battery and turning it back on, and pressing the Power and Volume Up buttons together but that just turns the phone off.
Please please help!

 

[Golfdriver97]

Hi
Today I tried to access my Playstore app and it would not open, then after restarting my phone I received the error message "unfortunately com.google.process.gapps has stopped working" or something like that. I was told by a friend that I had a virus and needed to restore my phone to its factory setting. I attempted to by selecting the option in my Settings, then the phone turned off and turned back on and asked me to pick one of several options using the volume buttons to select and the power button to choose that option. I clicked the first one, which was "recovery" I think, and the phone restarted.
However, now it won't load past the blue-glowing Samsung logo. I've tried removing the battery and turning it back on, and pressing the Power and Volume Up buttons together but that just turns the phone off.
Please please help!

Welcome to the forums.
That doesn't seem like a virus, just a hiccup with Play.
Rebooting into recovery would be volume up, power and Home. While there, click clear cache partition, and then click reboot.