PC not booting windows - hardware related?

[dasd]

Hi Folks!

I know I should know this but just had family emergency that has my mind in another place. Here's the deal... This ran smoothly until last Saturday when I noticed the boot sequence started to take more time and display all the post info which I had previously bypassed. It also was taking more time to display the windows splash screen but would then pause as if Windows was taking longer to load. Eventually Windows would load but I knew something was wrong.

The emergency hit later that day and I did not get to this until this morning. The same thing happened as before only this time the screen stayed dark and I was unable to access the login screen. I did notice my computer beeped once when I powered it on (I know that is significant, but as I said my mind has been pre-occupied). After three more attempts I was finally able to access windows and did proceed to troubleshoot the software end...

I know this is probably a simple fix that I am missing, but I would greatly appreciate any help. Thanks again and my apologies in advance for sounding like a doofus.

[ahihihi...]

Before turning on your computer, unplug any USB devices plugged in. Turn on the computer and wait. If it gets passed the part where it didn't work it's fixed. Another thing you could try is this. (You must have at least two computers or a laptop) Get a floppy disc or if you have burning software use that. Make a bootable disc or in the case that you are using a floppy disc go into format and format as bootable disc... Ahihihihi:twisted: By the way, you must have the same windows as the other computer. When that is done put the disc into the suffering computer and go into where you find Safe Mode and boot from the CD. (or floppy) Now try doing whatever comes on-screen. Another thing is if you have a Norton antivirus etc... then put the CD in and boot from that. Hope it helps...

[dasd]

Thanks for the reply but I didn't need to go that far. The troubleshooting I performed did the trick and if that hadn't worked I was just going to reinstall XP and add in all the service packs. As it is, I am doing fine now and appreciate the response.