XP Home Hanging on startup

[Ken]

I have a Anthlon XP 1900 with XP Home editon SP1
installed. Yesterday I returned to my office to find my
pc frozen to the point where ctrl+alt+del would not do
anything so I used the power buttong to turn it off. When
I restarted it and it almost fully booted up and froze,
the mouse works but it just stays on the windows xp screen
that appears before the login. I tried using all the
startup options but none will work and there has been no
new hardware or software installed on this pc.

Any idea's?

Thanks,

Ken

 

[Tergiversative]

I have a Anthlon XP 1900 with XP Home editon SP1
installed. Yesterday I returned to my office to find my
pc frozen to the point where ctrl+alt+del would not do
anything so I used the power buttong to turn it off. When
I restarted it and it almost fully booted up and froze,
the mouse works but it just stays on the windows xp screen
that appears before the login. I tried using all the
startup options but none will work and there has been no
new hardware or software installed on this pc.

Any idea's?

Thanks,

Ken

It could've been static-zapped or affected by a brownout or minor surge
while you were gone; are you connected to a UPS?

Sounds like the top possibilities are a damaged disk drive or memory;
memory chips are pretty easy to replace, or if there are two then you
can usually remove one at a time to see if they are damaged.

If the disk drive was damaged or is starting to fail, though, the best
thing you can try -- short of 3rd party tools -- is to let the system
cool down for a while, then re-try starting it. If that works, back up
any irreplaceable files IMMEDIATELY.

-- DE