Last night my computer froze as I was using Firefox. Unable to shut it down normally, I powered it down. Today, I turned it on, expecting it to either come up normally or scan the disk, what it normally does.

Instead, it hangs at "Initializing USB Controllers..." at POST for about a minute or so, then hangs at a blank screen with a flashing cursor for another few seconds. It then goes to a Windows boot selection screen, and I choose "Last Known Good Configuration". It takes me to the Windows splash screen, where the bar goes across the screen for a little bit. The computer then stops loading and returns to the initial POST messages.

The setup is:

Aspire X-Dreamer II case
Pentium 4 3.0 Ghz
Asus P4S800D-X mobo
ATI Radeon 9600
512 MB PC3200 RAM
WD160JB Hard drive

I haven't changed any of the hardware, although the front temperature readout has recently malfunctioned.

Any idea why this could be happening?

I had this before on a laptop. The little tab in the USB port fell out and so i plugged in a device the wrong way round and ended up frying all my USB ports

maybe you have a similar problem?'

unplug all USB devices and see if it says anything

I unplugged them all and I think it was my printer that was messing it up. Something about this thing. Anyway, it no longer hangs on "USB Controllers Initializing...", but it still will NOT boot into Windows. It goes to the windows boot options screen, I choose "last known good configuration", and it begins to start, but it then goes back to the POST message.

does it boot in safe mode?

No. It prints the list of drivers that are loaded for Safe Mode, then goes right back to POST.

thats wierd. Ive never seen anything like that. Could it be that your windows install is just trashed? , does it work fine from the CD?

maybe the death of firefox was caused by a hard disk crash which has corrupted the O/S?

Hopefully not, as this is a new HD that I just got about three weeks ago. I'll try booting from the Windows disk.