Stalling out on Start up

Hello all -

My poor machine has taken on a nasty habit of not starting up except when in safe mode. i'm logged in now though my alternate OS (xp), but need my 2000 for daily use. when booting, the welcome screen shows, i see the line increasing along the bottom, the screen flickers as though it's going to reveal my desktop, but it doesn't. it just flickers back to the startup screen.

the final action before meltdown i believe was my wife changing wallpaper and appearance, but nothing else of note.

any help? thanks a bunch.
Andy in Ohio

 

Try these things in this order and see if you are cured.

- start~run~cmd and at the command prompt chkdsk /r and make whatever answers you need to for it to run at next boot then boot.

- start~run~sfc /scannow and you will probably need your install CD in the drive. Note that this command runs fairly quickly and pretty silently so you would have to check your event logs when it is done to see what files, if any, were replaced.