Windows Freezes after Start-up, Black Screen

[Guest]

I have a serious issue with my desktop, as it will load windows, then freeze
right before the user log-on screen. All you see is a black screen, that
does not change or move. If I were to try to start-up in safe mode, then
that works just fine. A box would also pop-up with 'A duplicate name exists
on the network' at the log-on screen. I am not sure what to do. Also,
another problem was originally the log-on would lag forever (10-15 minutes)
between logging on and seeing the desktop. But then when you tried to click
on an icon, it would freeze.

Anyone have any idea what could be the problem here? This sucks.

 

[Rich Barry]

If you can start up in safe mode go to Start>All
Programs>Accessories>System Tools>System Restore. See if you can
restore to a time before this problem began.

 

[Guest]

I actually have tried both Norton go-back, as well as system restore, to no
avail. I have also started-up in safe mode and ran Ad-Aware, Housecall,
Norton and Spybot thinking a worm or something else malicious had infected my
computer. It came up with some spyware (can't quite remember the names), but
nothing evil.

I was going to do a system recovery, and when I put the disk in, it stated
that my gard drive was not partitioned. So as not to lose what I have saved
on the drive, I went out and bought a new hard drive (needed to upgrade
anyhow), and figure I could just transfer the files I need to the new drive,
and then wipe the old one clean. As of right now, this seems to be the best
option for me...

 

[Rich Barry]

I agree.