Sony VAIO w/XP Won't Start Up

[PhotographerRon]

Hi. I have a 3 year-old Sony VAIO with XP Home. System generally runs well; no problems. But a few weeks ago, when I restarted the machine (I generally never shut it off), it only booted into XP after I started up in Safe Mode a few times--not that I'm making a causal connection; just a comment. (I'm writing this on an W2K machine which is part of my little network). Now, after about an hour, I'm still looking at the Windows XP start up screen (with the little blue "progress" bar). Perhaps it's doing something intensive, but the HD is quiet; I haven't a clue. In safe mode (with networking) I checked the hardware and everything seems OK.

I can get into the system via any of the Safe Modes. Is there anything I can look at there which would give me a hint as to the problem? Is there anything I can set in safe mode? I've looked at the event log and nothing of interest appears there (at least to my novice eyes) except the note that "A port was listed as an exception when the Windows Firewall was started."

I tried downloading a (refreshed) NVIDIA driver; I tried restoring to a previous point, all to no avail.

Any thoughts besides buy a new machine?

ANY HELP IS GREATLY APPRECIATE!!!

LATE UPDATE: After I restored to a previous config via system restore, and a LOOONNNG delay, the system is back up. I think it may be time to get something new, but at least I'm up and running.
RON

[Jazz]

Originally Posted by PhotographerRon

Any thoughts besides buy a new machine?

Backup all important data to the W2K box first, naturally. Three years is a long time without a clean installation, if one hasn't been done already. You haven't given an indication, either way: -

Clean Install Windows XP