xp fails to start completely

[Craig]

When I start up my computer it goes as far as the xp blue page but there is
no user accounts or turn off computer in the bottom of the screen. It just
freezes at this point. I tried to go into safe mode by hitting f8 at start,
but the samething happens in safe mode it will just hang there forever. Any
help would be appreciated.

 

[Malke]

When I start up my computer it goes as far as the xp blue page but there
is no user accounts or turn off computer in the bottom of the screen. It
just freezes at this point. I tried to go into safe mode by hitting f8 at
start, but the samething happens in safe mode it will just hang there
forever. Any help would be appreciated.

Hi, Craig - It's kind of hard to troubleshoot this without being able to see
the computer. Give us some information about your machine, some specs, and
the recent history.

The First Question Of Troubleshooting: what changed between the time things
worked and the time they didn't?

In the meantime, try Last Known Good Configuration from the same menu as
Safe Mode.

Malke

 

[Craig]

The computer is a dell pc,512mb pentium. I tried the last good configuration
and it did not help. Before this happened my wife was trying to clean up the
computer because it was running very slow. Then when the computer was turned

 

[Frank Saunders MS-MVP IE,OE/WM]

Try a Repair Installation.
Repair Installation of WinXP:
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

 

[Craig]

It was #2 but I am going to check all hardware right now and make sure there
are no loose connections. In the meantime is there anything else that I could
do in order to get this comp to boot, my dell does not come with an xp cd
instead it tells you to go to system restore but I can't get there from here.
Craig

 

[Rock]

The computer is a dell pc,512mb pentium. I tried the last good
configuration
and it did not help. Before this happened my wife was trying to clean up
the
computer because it was running very slow. Then when the computer was
turned
on again it just froze at the startup. Hope this gives you a bit more
insight.
Craig

Clean up as in using a registry cleaner? If that's the case that could be
the problem. They are snake oil, rarely do any good and more often than not
cause more problems, such as yours. As Frank said, the next step, if you
can't get into safe mode and Last Known Good configuration doesn't work is
to try a repair install. He gave you the link.

If that doesn't do it, then slave the drive in another XP or Win2k or Vista
computer, copy the important data and then do a clean install. Best to
backup before trying the repair install.

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html