Running under XP-SP2, one day we got a hang on a reboot. Just after the normal display of the XP logo with a black background, the system froze. We got exactly the same situation after the following operations: - Restore of a previous XP onto the same spot - Installation of an XP-SP2 from scratch: hang on the first reboot from the xp installer after it’s finished with the copying of files - Replacement of the disk by another disk and Installation of an XP-SP2 from scratch: same hang as above Oddly enough, the installation of XP-SP1 was successful and things appeared to work properly. When we successfully installed the MS upgrade patch to SP2, we ran into the same hang at startup. Another symptom : disk copies using Acronis Disk Director Suite are unusually slow: the copy of a 4.5GB partition from one disk to another required 1 hour and a half!

Gswiss, SWAG, since all seemed fine 'till you applied the patch, maybe there's something wrong with it (a M$ snafu?), omit the patch & see. HTH. Ed in Texas.

OK, but we'd like to run under SP2. That machine has been doing so for a few years already. There may be something wrong with the hardware.

Yep I'd say that your hard drive or IDE controller is bad. Backup and replace the hard drive immediately. If the problem continues, it's got to be your IDE controller. In that case you'll need a new motherboard since you can't replace IDE controllers. Make sure Jesus is your Saviour!

I did replace the hard disk, as mentioned in my original message. If it's the IDE Controller, how come the Windows Installer runs all right until its first reboot? Why did did SP1 install successfully? I'm not trying to create an argument but I'd like to find out what's wrong.

"I did replace the hard disk, as mentioned in my original message." Your post was a little vague to me but now that I've re-read it I see that you have replaced it. I just had an IDE Controller go bad on me about 2 or 3 weeks ago. It would rarely ever boot to Windows, it would just boot to a blank screen after the POST, and would just hang there. The hard drive was sometimes detected improperly (odd characters in the POST when displaying the hard drive). The Event Viewer said something like "The driver detected a controller error on \Harddisk0\D." Replacing the IDE cable didn't work. Finally after the POST would start to hang when initializing IDE Devices (even when none were connected), I assumed that the IDE Controller went south. I suggest that you: Replace the IDE Cable to rule it out. These can go bad sometimes. If your replaced hard drive works well now and you have no more problems, the hard disk was probably at fault. If you are using a new cable with your new hard drive, the old cable may be at fault. But if you are still having problems with both the hard disk and the IDE cable changed, the IDE Controller is bad. Make sure Jesus is your Saviour!

Thanks very much for your explanations. I'll follow the procedure you outlined and come back to you whatever the outcome.