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Windows XP not starting properly

Sorry my post wasn't clear as to when to try CTRL-ALT-DEL - I meant when you get to that blue screen with the logo?

Tried that before ALT + TAB so see of I got some options, but to no avail.
 
The lot - every key combo I can think of! Went into Toshiba website today to see if I could order a recovery disk but it will only let me choose Vista as the operating system. Darn that
 
I'd attach the HDD to a USB caddy and using another PC, run a checkdisk /f and see if the disk is healthy or repairable.

If booting afterwards also fails, I'd stick the disk in the USB caddy again and copy the profiles and data off somewhere safe and then take a close look at the Default user profile and the All User profiles as I suspect something is wrong here as it is at this stage where your PC is locking. You could always copy these two profiles off another vanilla machine over the top of these two and try and boot again.

Failing that, use the USB caddy to drag off your data (if you've not already done it) and then rebuild from scratch. Windows 7 only takes 30 minutes to install from a DVD. use a new HDD too as their only £30 so not worth taking a risk with the old disk.
 
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I'd attach the HDD to a USB caddy and using another PC, run a checkdisk /f and see if the disk is healthy or repairable.

If booting afterwards also fails, I'd stick the disk in the USB caddy again and copy the profiles and data off somewhere safe and then take a close look at the Default user profile and the All User profiles [1] as I suspect something is wrong here as it is at this stage where your PC is locking. You could always copy these two profiles off another vanilla machine [2] over the top of these two and try and boot again.

Failing that, use the USB caddy to drag off your data (if you've not already done it) and then rebuild from scratch. Windows 7 only takes 30 minutes to install from a DVD. use a new HDD too as their only £30 so not worth taking a risk with the old disk.

Thanks, I feared this would be the case, but

[1] what would I be looking for in the user profiles that would signal a problem, and
[2] 'Vanilla' - pray what is that? I assume a clean operational PC?

Off to buy a USB caddy...
 
Caddy bought and and HDD mounted - virus checked and CHKDSK'd. No problems found.

Don't have a clean XP machine to copy the profiles over from - what should I look for?
 
Have you tried logging on with a different user profile...the administrator account for instance?
 
i don't get a logon screen - it just hangs at the windows logo [see post 1] during startup
 
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