Could be driver problems, that arn't used by Safe mode. Like graphics, network or CD support.

In safe mode check that you have no "?" in device manager, and that the above drivers have no problems. perhaps reinstall graphichs drivers as a begining.

Device manager can be found in SYSTEM in control pannel under the Hardware tab. You should uninstall graphics drivers in Safe mode and try and boot normally, this should revert to default and 640x480. if it works you can install new ones.

If this fails, do Anti-Virus and Spyware checks. Could be corrupt system files, in which case Windows Repair could help, but, its not far off a rebuild in that situation, with files backed up from safe mode.

Have you installed any new hardware that caused this to happen, or did you just turn it on one day, and it wasn't working. Have you left it a good half hour hanging just to check it eventually doesn't give any errors.

Before your repair or rebuild, In safe mode, go to Event Viewer in admin tools, and post any system error or warning messages that have recently occured. google them as well, as common faults are easy to find, and is what most people here would do to help anyway, and anything proactive is always going to make people want to jump in and fill any blanks.

well this is a DVR (digital video recorder) it is at a remote site and has been running fine for 2 years. then I lost contact with it so I had to go check it. when I got there it was just sitting at a blue desktop with the arrow and the hour glass. when I brought it back to my office and booted it in safe mode I could see that the DVR card was not there anymore. I unplugged the card and tried to reboot and same thing. in the event manager it says error 7/20/2005 DCOM when I clicked on it it tells me this:
The server {1BE1F766-5536-11D1-B726-00C04FB926AF} did not register with DCOM within the required timeout.
the next error was a service control manager that gave me this:
The following boot-start or system-start drivers failed to load.
MRxSmb
NetBIOS
NetBT
RasAcd
Rdbss
Slpsvdr
Tcpip

unfixable? not really a big deal to rebuild I just don't want to waste to much time trying to fix it. thanks for your help

ok now I am confused I reinstalled win 2k and everything went fine. after the install and it rebooted it did the same thing agian. so I put a new hard drive in and formatted and installed win 2k same thing happened it installed fine and then after the reboot it locked up. could it be the motherboard?
it is a older dell computer gx110. everything is built into the motherboard.
any ideas?

where are you MartyMcFly I need your help here.

Sry I haven't looked at this recently, but I'm really busy at work.

I reckon from the fact that you could install, that the main motherboard components would not be at fault. RAM and CPU, and obvioulsy HDD would not be at fault. The OS Diks can't be at fault, that just wouldn't install. It's too un-natural for the power supply to be faulty. Could be Graphics Card, does it boot into safe mode anymore.

If it gets into safe mode w/o networking, try disabling your network card. This seems the most likely culprit, as you had DCOM errors and network protocol errors initially.

If after this it boots normally, perhaps think about a new PCI card adapter.

Hope this is useful, if not too late to help. will keep a good eye on this thread