Crap Windows XP will not boot?

[Taipans]

I co-worker brought their dell in and wanted to know if I would "restore" it for them. This is a seemingly easy thing to do, so I took on the swapping of restoration discs and went through the procedure for them.

Anyhow now that everything is restored, and windows XP is updated along with any drivers I could find updates for, the damn thing hangs at the boot up screen. It seemed to work fine friday and I was ready to give it back to him.

I booted to safe mode and the same thing happened, safe mode displays its little message at the very top and bottom of the screen but all I get is a movable mouse cursor. I get the same thing on boot up, a black screen but movable mouse cursor.

I have no idea on how to fix this since I cant get into safe mode, anyone know whats going on?

Thank you!

[djnes]

You could always try a repair install, and then re-install the drivers one by one.

[zacdl]

If Safe Mode doesn't work, it's a bad thing.

What kind of drivers did it install? It obviously wasn't the display, sound, or anything like that, as those drivers aren't loaded in Safe Mode.

[Taipans]

No idea, I figured if safe mode wouldn't load its very screwed up. I re-partitioned it, formatted and tried again. So far its running...

[l337*g0at]

I'd try restoring the MBR.
I cant even imagine putting a number on the computers I've fixed for customers in under 5 minutes by simply restoring the MBR using a cd like Hirens Boot CD, or something of the equivilant.

If its not the MBR, a disc like that can troubleshoot for you.

[Taipans]

Is Hirens Boot CD free or do you have to buy it? I cannot seem to find a working download link anywhere!

Thanks

[digital_exhaust]

Is Hirens Boot CD free or do you have to buy it? I cannot seem to find a working download link anywhere!

It's warez.. take a look here. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiren's_boot_CD)

[Taipans]

Ugh! Had a feeling with all that software on it!