Booting problem

[Bob]

Hello. I have had XP on my Toshiba for several months now
with no problem. Earlier this week, I turned the computer
on, and it looked as if XP was starting normally. It
showed the XP logo. But then, when it should have brought
me to the logon screen, it instead went black, and a
message saying something like "Unable to..." appeared. It
goes away before I can read the whole thing. Then the
computer shuts off, starts again, and the whole process
begins anew. The only way I can stop it at that point is
to unplug the power supply and take out the battery. I've
tried hitting Esc the first time it begins to boot, and
experimented ever so slightly with beginning in Safe
mode, etc, but nothing seems to help. Can someone help me?

 

[Ben]

I had a similar problem and the way I fixed it was to go
into repair mode using the XP CD and running chkdsk.