Laptop Startup problems

[Sitara Lal]

I have a Toshiba laptop (out of warranty, naturally) with Win XP home that
refuses to boot - the initial Windows logo comes on and after that I have a
blank screen with only the cursor showing.

However, I can get the computer to start on Safe Mode - which does not
reveal any 'obvious' defects (i.e. all items seem to be working on Device
Manager)

How can I move on from Safe Mode to Normal bootup? Can anyone point me to
some online resource(s) which show what needs to be done after getting into
the Safe Mode stage?

Also, should I be able to access the Internet when I am in 'Safe Mode with
networking support'?

Thanks for your help

 

[Daave]

I have a Toshiba laptop (out of warranty, naturally) with Win XP home
that refuses to boot - the initial Windows logo comes on and after
that I have a blank screen with only the cursor showing.

However, I can get the computer to start on Safe Mode - which does not
reveal any 'obvious' defects (i.e. all items seem to be working on
Device Manager)

How can I move on from Safe Mode to Normal bootup? Can anyone point
me to some online resource(s) which show what needs to be done after
getting into the Safe Mode stage?

How long have you been experiencing this problem? Have you done anything
specific recently which caused this problem? Have you tried using System
Restore to go back to a time before this problem occurred? See:

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial56.html#restore

If that doesn't work, using Safe Mode, you may use msconfig to
troubleshoot. Essentially, you will be disabling different combinations
of startup programs and processes to figure out the problematic one(s).
See:

"How to troubleshoot by using the System Configuration utility in
Windows XP"
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310560

and

"How to configure Windows XP to start in a "clean boot" state"
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310353

Also, should I be able to access the Internet when I am in 'Safe Mode
with networking support'?

Not via dial-up, but an Ethernet connection should work in a limited
way.