XPpro SP3. Boot seems OK, but XP locks up early on at the Welcome or Starting Up phase, sometimes after the wallpaper and icons show up. The kbd and mouse are disabled. XP opens OK in Safe w/network mode. I've tried various MSCONFIG combinations with no luck. Can I refresh the installation? If there's a simple command in the recovery console, I can give it a shot, but would sure like to avoid a reformat and reload.

mmm - presuming nothing amiss internally... and no suspicions of nasties... Maybe a repair installation - as per the "non" Recovery Console path...? See: http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrep... http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/... Read the info carefully and avoid the Recovery Console path... for repair... However it may be worth to use RC to run a checkdisk routine (only)? Then go the Repair path as above..? If you can get into safe-mode does it still (fail to) boot as currently in normal mode? "If" you can get into safe-mode OK then initiate a checkdisk from there (requires a reboot of course?); and thus no needo f RC? If possible might be wise to download/copy all data to optical media first. Use a Knoppix or Ubuntu (Linux) CD/DVD to this end? Verify the copies are accessible on at least one other working system; then set about repair routine? That way data at least is safe regardless of how you resolve problems various...