Stops at Welcome Screen

[Ed.]

When I start my computer, it goes to the Splash Screen and then gets to the
Welcome Screen and just stops loading. The mouse works. The mouse isn't
locked up. Can't do a Ctrl-Atl-Del.

Shut it down and tried Safe Mode. It gets to the color of the wall paper
that is in safe mode and stops there.

Any idea what is going on and how to get windows to load again?

Thanks

 

[BigJIm]

could be the boot files are corrupt and/or the hard drive is going bad.
I have had this happen and what I do is reload windows and install a new
drive.

 

[Ed.]

Thanks for the reply. I ran a memory test with memtest and it showed 346
errors. I will try swapping out the RAM with another stick and see if that
is the problem.

Since you mentioned the hard drive, I will run the manufactures diagnostics
on it and see what it comes up with. Then I will take it out and slave it in
another computer to save data from it since I can't get into it with a
normal boot or using Safe Mode. I even tried the XP CD and the Recovery
Counsel and then got a BSOD screen.

If drive checks out OK, I will try a clean install of XP and see if it will
install.

Thanks for the reply,
Ed.

 

[Ed.]

OK, I just ran a hard drive diagnostics from the manufactures diagnostics
floppy. I did the Quick and it said errors and to run the Full Scan.

It came up and to fix, click Yes. If you do, you may loose data in the bad
areas. If you say No, chances are you won't be able to recover it anyway.
So, I said Yes. It took about a second and said fixed.

I was then able to boot into Windows. I was running some spyware checks and
after one finished the computer restarted. So, in settings for failure and
recovery I unchecked to auto restart in event of a failure so when it
happens again I can see the BSOD and maybe get some hints from it.

I still haven't tried another stick of RAM since the current one shows
errors from running Memtest86. Will try that also and see what happens.