WinXP Logon Freeze

[Toymaker]

Hello!
I am new here, and I hope someone here can really help me out of this dilemma. My wife somehow downloaded and installed a certain driver she thought it was to be upgraded for Window XP Pro. After rebooted, the WinXP logo was splashing, but when it comes to the logon, everything froze. I ask if she remembers what the driver was she downloaded and installed, she didn’t know for sure what it was. I try booting into WinXP Pro Safe Mode, and it did the same thing, it just froze and cannot log onto Safe Mode. Believing it may have been a certain driver in conflict with something incompatible – possibly the USB – I unplug all the devices using the USB including the mouse. The results are still the same as before.

I slip in the WinXP CD and use the Recovery Console and using the command.exe to run chkdsi /r to see if it can repair it. It didn’t work. Finally I decided to use the WinXP Repair by reinstalling the WinXP files hopefully to resolve the issue. Again it didn’t work.
I don’t mind if I have to reformat the hard drive which I know how. But it’s the important data I would very much like to retrieve before I do any reformatting.
Does anyone have any suggestions how I can either retrieve the data (be it with software, or whatever), or how I can fix the WinXP? Thanks!

Toymaker

[Spools]

Have you tried the Last Know Good Configuration option? You'll find it on the same menu as Safe Mode after pressing F8 at startup.

[Toymaker]

Spools, that's the trouble, i cannot access the Safe Mode as it will freeze up at the logon.

Toymaker

[glc]

No, it's on the boot choice screen where you CHOOSE safe mode - long before you get to a logon.

[Toymaker]

Oh, my! Am I ever embarrassing LOL. Ok, I did the Last Configuration as suggested, and so far nothing. I even try other modes in Safe Mode, and still won’t log me into Windows. My only option would be reformatting my hard drive. I have no problem with that. Problem is, how I can best retrieve my files in C: Directory. I used to be able to use the DOS command in Windows 95 years ago, but now I can’t seem to do the same with WinXP Pro unless there is a way around that. Any suggestions would be of help if I can somehow retrieve the files before I start formatting the hard drive.
Toymaker

[glc]

Remove the hard drive and use a USB adapter to recover your files to another computer.

[Toymaker]

Would you please give me a step by step how I can accomplish this? I have never done this before. The hard drive that needs files recovering is a SATA. The computer is a dual core desktop. I have two other choices of computer. One is my latest newest dual core laptop, and my other is an older but reliable desktop (Pentium 3). Both computers have USB connectors. Do you think I would need an external hard drive enclosure? Thanks!
Toymaker

[Spools]

GLC is talking about using something like this: Sarbent USB Adapter.
They're very handy to have when you need to get data off a failed drive.

[dbc]

I use this one and works great.

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=2020&cat=CBL

[Toymaker]

Oh! Ok I didn’t realize this. This is new to me. I believe I am going to go ahead and order the Sarbent USB Adapter. Actually I had planned on ordering two new larger SATA hard drives for my dual core desktop computer (my original SATA hard drive is only 80GB). This will not only handle a lot of my important data, but photos as well. My camera is a Canon 40D and takes huge image, so I figure getting those two new hard drives will make it a lot easier. Other than that, I have planned or getting ready to order the new Windows 7 when it comes out on the market next month.
So, do you think it’s a good idea that once I install the new Windows 7 with two new hard drives I can actually transfer my files from my old SATA hard drive to the second hard drive using the Sarbent USB Adapter? Thanks!
Toymaker