Win XP sticks on 'rolling blue bars'

[standin wave]

I just changed my mobo and CPU, mem but wanted to keep the same HDD as I have over 70 apps installed. I can boot into safe mode, but the OS just gets stuck on the rolling blue bar bit just before the login welcome screen. I've been told I need to do a fresh install and that a repair will not work (I tried it didn't). The mobo is Asus A7V8X, proc is XP2800 Barton with 512MB DDR333. I can copy important stuff elsewhere - such as emails and IE favs etc and I actually have very little of 'my' data on the C partition. Is there no option other than to do a fresh install as it took a week last time to get things sorted. I had done a drive image before I started, but that would not help with a fresh install. Any advice appreciated !

[doctorgonzo]

Do you still have the old mobo and CPU? Did you just swap the components without doing anything else to prepare?

[standin wave]

Yes I still have the Soltek mobo and Celeron. I CAN get into Safe Mode with the new stuff, so I know nothing is actually broken, so I can copy/move things between partitions at will!

Thanks for blazingly fast reply!

sw

[doctorgonzo]

If you have the old components, you may want to set everything up the old way and see if you can boot normally. If so, give this procedure a try before you move to the new CPU and mobo.