I am unable to completely start Windows XP on my laptop. After the Welcome Screen and sound, my screen goes to all blue---no icons, no toolbar at the bottom, nothing. Only thing you can see is the cursor as I move my mouse. Where's my main screen hiding? . . .When I hit the F8 key when starting-up and select safe mode, I'm still not having success. After entering safe mode, a small black screen appears but doesn't allow me to navigate in it or give me any options. I'm at the point now, where I guess I lost my hard drive, but I can't even make a CD work at this point to reinstall anything. Help appreciated. Thanks. Dale

hi there, can you try this. go to the screen which has the option safe mode, safemode with command prompt and look out for an option called, last known good configuration. select that and proceed and see whether it works... regards vc

Thanks. I tried that but still keep getting the nothing but blue screen. I also tried the following: I just tried booting from my CD. First, I changed my boot order, then I booted and got the message "press any key to boot from CD." With my Dell re-installation XP CD already in the drive, I hit any key. But after the welcome screen, I'm still getting nothing but a blue screen. I guess I'm approaching that point where a reformat of the C-drive may be in my near future. Any other ideas before i get to that point?

... via the blue screen: "Only thing you can see is the cursor as I move my mouse. Where's my main screen hiding?" ... can you click the mouse left/right any options ??

"press any key to boot from CD." It might be that you aren't hitting the key fast enough. You only have a couple of seconds. Hit the 'Enter' key.