System Restore stuck at "Preparing to restore...

I'm running windows xp, sp2. This morning my email contacts (windows live) were totally gone. I did a System Restore to two days ago, but Sys Rest. got stuck for the last hour + on the Preparing to restore... screen. The bar shows no progress.

I'm wondering if I can safely do a shutdown or reset and restart?

 

Since it has been an hour, I think I would just hold the power button in and let it shut down. Then restart and see what happens.

If it doesn't start properly then restart and hit F8 repeatedly before Windows starts and select Last Know Good Configuration from the Advanced/Safe Mode options.

 

It was as simple as that. Held the power button down 5 seconds and it restarted just fine. Thank you.

 

You really need to update to SP3. Support for SP2 ended July 13, 2010. As a result, you have not received any security patches nor windows updates for more than 2 years.

 

Good catch, plodr. I looked at my properties in "my computer" and found that I do have SP3. Thanks

 

Phew, glad you are up to date and thanks for letting us know.