XP Pro hangs during normal boot up but not safe mode

[Socio]

Trying to figure out what is hanging my system at normal boot as I can get it to safe mode ok.

If memory serves there is a way to remove the boot up screen with the progress bar and see what is loading during boot up thus see where it stops loading. I just can't remember if so and how does anyone one know how to do it?

Thanks.

 

[Markbnj]

Used to be you could hit the 'esc' key and get the POST output for all the devices, but I don't know if that still works.

If you hit F8 during boot, do you see a "Boot with logging" option? If so, choose that, and you should see a 'boot.log' file in the root directory of the system volume. It is usually pretty dense, but if you wade through it you might find the problem. Another option is bootvis, a tool from Microsoft (which I think may no longer be supported) that allows you to peer into the boot process.

 

[Smilin]

Use an MSConfig clean boot next.

start | run | msconfig.

Goto the last tab, disable all.
Goto the 2nd to last tab, hit 'hide all ms services' checkbox at the bottom then hit disable all on what remains.

Reboot.

If it comes up fine, take an educated guess and start adding things back in.