We have an older HP laptop with Windows XP. It will startup with the wall paper and allows me to sign in with my name and brings up all the icons as normal then it just sits there with the little hour glass. I'm lost without a wrench in my hand. Any help would be appreciated.

See if you can get it to boot in safe mode. There usually some function key like F2 or F8 at startup that'll take you a menu to boot normally, boot to safe mode, safe mode w/lan, etc.

If it'll let you in that way I think you can check the event logs from there - haven't done it in awhile - that may give you some clue as to why it's hanging up at normal boot. There's usually a driver that causes problems like this when it can't initiate.

Thanks Dale. I'll give that a try.

Thinking about this last night, F2 usually gets you into the BIOS; F8 is used to access the Windows boot menu. :clonk: