XP Freezes during bootup!?!

[meblumen]

I have been running XP on my main desktop for sometime without any problems. I have 4 user accounts which after the computer boots up it goes to the menu where one can select one of the four accounts. When one is selected it takes a sec and says loading user settings and then opens their desktop and the user can begin using all the programs and whatnot. However, today I turned on my computer and booted it up and it took a bit longer than usual before coming to the screen where I pick a user. When I selected a user it gives me the screen that says it will be a sec while it loads the settings and then the computer just freezes. I can move the mouse but the computer doesn't do anything else, I can't reboot with ctrl + alt + delete and was forced to manually reboot my machine. However regardless of how many times I do it, it still freezes, regardless of the user I pick or anything. As a result I can't really even get into XP to poke around and see whats wrong. Hence could somebody please help me fix this because as of now the machine is totally unuseable and I have files on it that I can't lose so doing a reinstall right now is out of the question. Thanks in advance for your help.

[andyms18a]

boot the computer and as soon as the bios finishes loading press the f8 key repetedley til you get the safemoad option menue and try and boot to safemoad if you can then run system restor

[meblumen]

Thanks for the reply, I actually tried that and no dice.

[andyms18a]

ok you may have a hard ware fault can you post your system specks and if you have moor than one stick of ram remove them and try one at a time

[meblumen]

Its a Dell 8100. I'm pretty sure its a 1.7 with 256mb of RAM (only one stick). I put a firewire PCI card in it and have installed a wireless mouse, a printer, a digital camera and an Ipod but other than that haven't messed with it. Its been running XP for quite sometime with out any problems and aside from a few misc programs I mostly have wordprocessing and business software on it like Microsoft Office and Quicken. In addition its hooked up to a network via a wireless router but it has a hardwire connection and is connected to the internet via broadband. Hope this is enough to give you a good idea of the system. I'll keep plugging away at it but so far I haven't gotten anything to respond. Thanks again for your help.

[bailey]

the best and easiest thing to do at this point is a install-repaire with the xp cd

something is locking it up and a repaire should fix it.

[andyms18a]

if its not hardware then baileys idea of a repair instal shod work if it dont remove all pci cards and any usb devices and unplug the network and try a boot

[Craig100]

before that, you can try removing the firewire card, and try changing the mouse. then try booting into safe mode again, and then remove any software which you did install, then look at the manufactures website to try and find new drivers, and if there was any compatability issues, other than that go with bailey.