When I turned on my computer today, I got this error:


We apologize for the inconvenience, but Windows did not start successfully. A recent hardware or software change might have caused this.

Whichever option I choose, either safe mode, safe mode with networking, safe mode with command prompt, last configuration or start normally, the windows xp screen comes up, a blue screen flashes quickly (it doesn't look like the regular blue screen you get while in windows, but it flashes too quickly for me to see what it actually says) and the computer reboots.

I am running windows xp home on a pentium 4. I don't know off hand any other specifics about my computer, it is a year old and was pretty close to top of the line at the time. 128 MB of ram and 80 GB harddrive.

Yesterday I had a windows update and it did not finish, it crashed, but I just turned off my computer and was intending on redoing it today. Also, I installed some software for my rio mp3 player.

What should I do?

Your failed update probably deleted some of your system files and didn't replace them. You might want to try the Recovery Console (See the icky Sticky at the top). Rolling your computer back to the day before the update would probably be the easiest.

thanks for your help.

what is an icky sticky?

Sorry, I didn't realize that this was in the wrong forum. It should be in Windows, where there's a STICKY (it says Read: ) on how to boot to the console. Sorrry...:dead: