Laptop freeze after SP2

[cdrive2002]

I recently installed Service Pack 2 on my Dell Inspiron 1100 WIN XP laptop. (20 gb hdd, 256 mem. Celeron processor). Since that time, I have been unable to use it at all. It started being very slow to startup and at this point will not open anything. Cannot scan with anti-virus (should be no problems since I have not been online or used disks since the last scan). I was able to run sfc/ scannow before it stopped working completely. I didn't find anything then. I went into safe mode and took all that I could out of the startup list but it still loads very slowly and then does nothing. CDs will not run from that drive. It starts and then stops running. Things work properly in safe mode. This laptop has not been used often and I would like to be able to network it with my other computers. I would like to be able to run scannow again but I am unable to do it from safe mode. Any ideas?

[shadowpr]

i'm tempted to say that if it was running smoothly before you upgraded to sp2, then to get rid of sp2. especially if that's the only thing that you did and tehn right after that it started to slow down.

[law99]

If your Pc has a infection when installing SP2 problems are common. You probably need HJT help from a pro.

[glc]

Bring it up in safe mode and use system restore to reset it to a date before you installed SP2 and it was working properly. Then do a thorough cleanup.

[Negeva]

I'm tempted to suggest looking for a BIOS update before trying to install SP2 again. I remember that many Intel machines had issues with SP2 and it's micro-code and a BIOS update fixed this issue; if this laptop is as old as I think it is then that's the only solution.