my home machine is getting stuck at the boot screen (the progress bar loops under the xp logo). boots in safe mode okay, nothing interesting in the event log.
tried booting with logging but i know next to nothing about xp, the log i'm looking at looks like it's from the safe-mode boot rather than the attempted regular boot.
running a virus scan, but that's going to take ages and i'd rather try it later when i'm going out instead of now when i need to be working. anyone got any suggestions on stuff to try?
got a selection of xp cds, some legit, some copied - can't remember which one's actually installed, does that matter for repair console, or does it differ/detect between versions? if i can avoid it, i don't want to toast the install.
xp gets stuck at boot screen
You can try the repair option (not recovery console!) - http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm
If that works, you'll have to re-download window patches and SP2 ( i think)
There's probably a better way than this, but if that fails you can just install another copy of windows on your machine (different windows folder) to get into windows and access your files.
If that works, you'll have to re-download window patches and SP2 ( i think)
There's probably a better way than this, but if that fails you can just install another copy of windows on your machine (different windows folder) to get into windows and access your files.
cheers for the replies 
looked at the repair console and didn't see anything that looked immediately useful, tried a repair install with no joy (it did broke safe-mode). ended up using this thing (which owns):
http://trinityhome.org/trk/
to grab the data and then restored the system from the last time i remembered to backup, so i've lost a few months of program installation and tweaking - which isn't too bad, but i'm still in a strop about it.
looked at the repair console and didn't see anything that looked immediately useful, tried a repair install with no joy (it did broke safe-mode). ended up using this thing (which owns):
http://trinityhome.org/trk/
to grab the data and then restored the system from the last time i remembered to backup, so i've lost a few months of program installation and tweaking - which isn't too bad, but i'm still in a strop about it.