XP stops after logo screen...HELP

I've read 78% of the posts from a search for "black sceen" under XP and I believe I have a problem not described in any of the posts.

Last night after computer seemed to be running slow (had been on for 3 days) I rebooted only to be greeted by "We're sorry, computer wasn't shut down properly..." Once the check was done, I got the Windows Home logo it disappeared then a black screen with the white cursor...only it wasn't blinking!
Tried Safe Mode, got as far as Safe Mode in all 4 corners and SOLID cursor. Tried Last Known Good Config, same thing...Windows logo then black screen. No response.

Most of people's problems were MBR and video, but they COULD get to Safe Mode - I can't.

ANY ideas?! Need to try something before reformat/reinstall.

 

Since Sys Restore is not an option w/o a functional desktop, the repair XP from the cd might be your only chance. If you could somehow get it to boot, you might be able to fix it w/o such drastic measures. Post back, and good luck.

Johanna

 

Months back on a different system I tried a Repair installation and got discouraged when it asked for an administrater password. I didn't set one up on the initial install and don't think I did on this dead machine either. How do you continue with a Repair Installation? (Users were administrators, but during the install I left the fields blank that asked for a specific administrator password.)

 

Leave it blank and just keep going. You would be surprised how many machines have no admin password. Just hit enter and continue.

Johanna

 

That's just the thing, in the past I'd try to hit Enter to contiune (now I'm talking about the black and white DOS style window where I was asked for the password) and it would say incorrect and ask me 2 more times before crapping out and not letting me continue to try and even run the repair installation.

 

UPDATE!

OK, scratch the posting about getting the error for the admin password. I tried hitting ENTER like suggested and it went to C:\WINDOWS. (I'm thinking of another machine which had a password I couldn't remember)
I can get into System Recovery but on one of the links above MS says you can't run System Restore from Recovery prompt!
So...
In regular mode, it'll display the Windows logo then a black screen with a moveable arrow...that's it.
In Safe mode, same thing, gets to the point of saying safe mode in the corners, moveable arrow...that's it.
Safe Mode w/ Command prompt...black screen...arrow, NO command prompt! So no System Restore, I guess!

I'm stuck. What now?!

Any services I can disable or at least check?

Is an installation over top of what's already there possible?
Repair installation?

I'd like to try anything possible to get this to boot before resorting to fresh install...

 

I've had some success with similar problems by booting into the Recovery Console and typing "chkdsk /r" (without the quotes). It takes a while...about 20 minutes on a fast machine...but often fixes whatever the problem is.

 

You can also try FIXBOOT from the recovery console.

 

Will try both the above suggestions and post back...

(I almost tried fixmbr also but didn't want to do anything that would mess up any chances of screwing things up worse to where a fresh install became the only way!)

Hope this works...