XP hangs on startup

I have XP Home installed.

I have had the machine for nearly 5 years. I have made no hardware changes
in the last year or more, and have not (knowingly) added any software in the
last 6 months or so. I apply Windows updates, and protect the PC as far as
I can with Norton.

Suddenly, it stalls on startup. I get the "Windows XP" logo, but the little
blue blips that pass across the screen suddenly stop. That's it! No more!

I can start the PC in safe mode, and I've defragged the hard drive (it was
80% full, but I've deleted enough stuff that it's now <60% full - and
defragged again). No difference. Still stalls on "normal" startup.

I've looked at device manager and all the devices seem to be working
normally.

This happened once before, about 2 years ago, and I got out of it by
re-installing XP. I really don't want to go through that rigmarole again.

Any ideas?



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Relevant Pages

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