XP Home boot problem: hangs before Welcome screen

[LFCFan]

Hi,
I hope someone on here can help me. I have exhausted all my knowledge on this problem!

I am working on a Packard Bell laptop running XP Home. The user has installed some "clean up" software which claims to speed up your system. Now the machine will only boot as far as Packard Bells splash screen that appears just before the welcome screen.

The mouse pointer is active so it's not crashing. This is what I have tried so far:

*Entered recovery console and have ran CHKDSK, FIXBOOT, FIXMBR.
*Replaced explorer.exe and .scf from the XP disk
*Enabled VGA mode (from F8) before boot
*Placed HDD into another machine but still wont pass splash screen.

I think the "clean up" software has deleted or quarantined some vital system files but I have no idea which. I don't really want to go through an replace every single one.

Repairing from XP cd won't work. Setup always wants to format the drive.

If this was my machine I'd have given up by now, flattened it and re-installed but it is a family members machine which has photos of their baby on which they do not want to lose.

Sorry for the extensive post but I didn't want to waste anyone's time by them posting solutions I've already tried.

Any help will be greatly appreiciated.

Thankyou in advance.

 

[sturm]

Have you tried going into safe mode -> press F8 repeatedly at boot to get to a menu. Select safe mode.
Goto run type msconfig and hit enter. goto startup tab and uncheck all startup programs. Reboot and see if it will boot normally

 

[LFCFan]

Have already tried this. When booting into safe mode it just displays black screen with mouse pointer and "safe mode" in top two corners.

 

[pscowboy]

If you get to the second Repair segment of the install process, it does not format your existing Windows. It overwrites it.

This is the place you get to by proceeding through a normal installation, and after hitting F8, agreeing to the EULA. The install should "see" the old Windows and offer to repair.

If the install does not see the Windows, you are screwed.