XP Freezes During Boot

I have an ASUS barebones system wtih integrated Realtek HD audio. I was upgrading the audio drivers on my computer, and accidentally installed the wrong driver software. The installation failed. The next time I rebooted, the boot froze on the Windows logo screen with the progress bar. The bar kept moving, but the system never booted (even after 12 hours).

I restored my system configuration to an system restore point before the drivers were installed, but this didn't help.

I was able to get into safe mode and tried uninstalling the audio driver software. The uninstall failed. With some research, I was able to identify that RtkAudHD.sys is the driver that had been installed. I deleted it. This didn't fix the problem.

I've generated a bootlog.txt and it looks like drivers stop loading properly after Mup.sys loads.

Finally, I used my XP CD to perform a repair install. When the repair rebooted the machine, it again froze during startup. What's more, I can no longer get into safe mode because the message "Windows XP Setup cannot run under SafeMode" comes up.

Do I have to reinstall Windows to get my machine up and running again?

 

At this point, yes, thats going to be the easiest thing to do.