XP won't boot

Hi, I'm new here and know enough to be fairly dangerous. My dell XP won't boot in any mode, and when I try and boot from safe mode command line, it stops at windows\system 32\drivers\mup.sys. I rand diagnostics with no errors. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Mike

 

Your best bet will be to get the windows xp cd that came with the Dell. place it in the cdrom and power off and back on. If it does not boot to the CD automatically just press F12 at the initial Dell screen during the POST (first thing you see when powering on). F12 will take you to the boot menu. Then you select to boot from cd. go through the motions like you are installing windows xp. Once boot from CD is successful, you will be asked if you want to install windows or attempt to repair by pressing R. this will take you to the recovery console. just press enter to get to the next screen. WindowsXP setup will then detect any current installations of Windows. then you will be presented with the choice to make a fresh install, or attempt to repair a damaged installation. At this screen you want to choose the repair. The setup will then go through all the motions of installation but you will retain all your settings and applications. If for some reason your current installation is not detected. i would then restart and go to the recovery console to salvage any data you need to. if you dont need to salvage anything then just continue with a fresh install of XP, but this option will lose all previous settings and you will have to reinstall all applications you may have had. Hope this helps.:cool