XP hangs at dvd drive ID

[oldsalt19]

My XP computer is hanging on bootup before the XP welcome screen appears, just after the DVD drives are recognized and identified. This problem has appeared gradually as I have eventually been able to get it to boot with power on & off, etc but now it just won't work. I took a photo of the screen at this point and I have tried to attach it to this post. BTW, I have not been able to access the BIOS screen or safe mode. These tools just won't respond to the keypresses, (F8, DEL, etc). I have tried having a bootable floppy (freedos) or CD (XP system disk) in the appropriate drives but the computer ignores them. Thank you for your help.
Oldsalt

 

[Archean]

Probably one of the installed HDDs / Optical drives is causing this problem or it may be the controller. You may remove all the installed devices i.e. HDDs and DVDs, then try to post if the computer posts it means it was one of your drives.

Now, provided that happens, reattach your devices one by one and see what you come up with.