frozen, won't start up

[jim]

Have the following message when booting:

we apologize for the inconvenience, but windows did not
start successfully. A recent hardware or software change
might have caused this.........

When I chose an option, it just freezes....no movement

I get something about a bootstat.file being compressed or
whatever and to right click.

I don't get that option, any ideas?

 

[Paul B T Hodges]

If you have the windows xp retail cd
boot from it, and at the first screen enter the recovery console.

run chkdsk

remove the cd and reboot

Paul