PC stuck on "preparing to stand by" window

[Guest]

Hello,
I have a Sony Vaio PC with Win XP Home edition on it. It's two years old.
It has been a good system. However, tonight I did a defrag and got (not
responding). My Computer is also not responding. While I went to my laptop
to get info from Microsoft website, the screen changed to a blue Microsoft
screen with "Preparing to stand by" in the middle of it. Cannot
control+alt+delete, escape, or turn off the computer.
I am afraid to do anything more to it because I might make things worse.
What is this "preparing to stand by" message all about and how can I get
my PC back to normal?
Need help asap. Thank you.

 

[Guest]

Well.... I believe my PC is okay now. After sitting for an hour with the
"preparing to stand by" window displayed, the screen went black and the
computer went into stand by. My blue light on the on/off switch turned to
orange. I pressed it and it turned blue and came back to life. The "My
Computer" window was responding again so I closed it. The defrag window was
also responding so I stopped the defrag and closed that window. I then shut
down the PC and am rebooting it now. I guess it just needed time to fix
itself?... I plan to do an error check on both drives just to be on the
safe side. Not sure if the stalled/aborted defrag caused problems.

I still would like to know about the "preparing to stand by". Is that a
hibernation mode? Where are the settings located for this?