Ok, stupid me. I was just about to try windows recovery function, when I decided that if the problem originated with the modem, therefore that must be what I needed to concentrate on. So I uninstalled the modem and unplugged it from the computer, and hey presto the computer now starts up ok.

Thanks to all who would have helped!... Gotta go work now, so will attempt to reinstall the modem later...

I have the same issue. Except my problem began after a power outage. I've had friends in the IT field check the computer out and finally took it in to Best Buy for them to look at it but no one seems to know what the problem is. Windows has been completely restored and still the same freeze happens during start up I was able to start the computer in safe mode like grumpyXP, but after Best Buy worked on it, I can't even do that anymore. One friend thought the problem could be the motherboard but Best Buy ran a diagnostic on all the hardware and found no problems. I don't think I have modem issues, but don't even know how I would check that out to make sure. Any suggestions?

Reinstalled or Restored? Have you tried removing hardware down to ram + video?

first off. if you cant boot after best buy touched it then you could have a seperate problem. There could be a dip switch or jumper screwed or something oculd be shorterd not plugged in or not placed on the motherboard properly. Check your mobo, wiring and drives.

second. if you could only boot into safe mode then do it. Remove all startup items then try booting back into normal mode. msconfig from the run command will bringup a screen that shows what software starts when your computer does. go through it and pull any unneccessary files.

The power outage could have kolled your modem ,remove it from computer and try booting .or as said above remove all and replace one ata time to help find the one causing the prob!

Hey guys...i'm new here.

I'm having almost the same problem but with Win2k. I just moved recently and while setting up my computer i think i fryed the motherboard, because of static. In any case, i went and bought a new motherboard (Abit NF7-S with 512mb DDR Ram). My computer is about 4 years old. It's a
-1ghz AMD TBird
-ABIT KT7 mobo
-512 SDRam
-3 hard drives (WD 120gig, IBM 40gig, WD 40gig)
-GeForce 2 MX video card (I know it's old)
-Win2k Pro

So i changed the motherboard and ram and hooked up bare minimum (video, ram, hdd) and it hanges at boot up...where the Win2k start up screen shows up that blue line that goes accross is still moving but the loading bar doesn't go past 9 bars (half way). Anyone know what's up? I don't want to format cus i have way too much stuff on the main windows hdd. Any help would be great.

Thanks,
Lawrence

had some similiar issues that drove me crazy for a couple days.

Windows XP started to freeze at boot when loading drivers. Was able to get to the HD with acroplis and make a backup. Thought an XP file was corrupt, so went to repair mode and fixboot, but this didn't work. Disabled most services. Re-seated all cards/memory. This did not work. Used memtest86 to check memory. No errors. Used Seagate to check HD for errors. No Errors. Checked Power, Temp etc... All tests came back OK. Thought maybe XP was just corrupt with a virus or something. Freeze again during install when XP rebooted. Thought maybe the DELL version of XP was checking the HD for info during install, serial numbers or such. Nope. Updated mobo BIOS. Still freezes. Could boot off floppy, DVD, HD (Win98) to DOS. Could read HD fine. What is going on here? Could it be the video card? Nvidia Gforce... Tested OK. Removed battery to reset CMOS. Still freezes. Check cables and hardware settings in BIOS. Everything looks ok. Went through many posts on several sites. People are replacing mobos, memory, hds, power supplies. Finally, after several days of troubleshooting, I see a couple posts with similiar issues. One guy replaced drive cables, and this worked for him. One guy disable DVD drive and that worked for him. I do have 2 DVD/CDROM drives. One CD-RW and one DVD-RW. The DVD-RW is the drive I always use now and it had been working fine. But the other was BAD! I disconnected that CD-RW and BAM!, Windows XP starts right up. Not sure if it was because the drive was secondary master or just gone. So check these things before buying all new hardware. You may be able to save some money/time.

mine had the same problem.my computer had stopped recognizing my camera and the the problem developed when i tried to boot up again.I just removed the firewire cable and its working fine now.still gots to test the firewire tho

my cpu has a prob with booting, it gets past the win xp loading screen but when win xp fades in (before it gets to the account logon screen), it freezes.

the last thing I remember doing was installing VB6 for a project I was working on, but after it restarted, that's what happened.

can anyone help me?
I have the HDD in my 2nd cpu so I can edit the OS.
but I need help on how to do so.