dont know if this link will help ?
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/816873
or this
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-6142_102-0.html?forumID=5&threadID=9825&messageID=113771
other possibility seems to be Trend micro anti-virus as per this chap ...
Hello Rick "Nutcase" Rogers,
Further to my problem...(and resolution!)
Friday Trend sent down a new pattern around 3:30 PT. Some XP users
experienced 100% CPU utilization resulting in zero ability to utilize their
computers. It had to do with an enhancement put in place by Trend that was
found to cause some XP systems with particular configurations to lock up
and/or crash.
The fix is simple (as long as one hasn't messed up something else in trying
to get the system up and running in the meantime ). Remove the offensive
pattern file and update quickly to the new one.
So there we have it.
Once again thanks for your thoughts. Perhaps some other users can be helped
by this.
Best regards
Others with similar problems try signing on as Administrator (the hidden overall master) which may or may not have any password, then removing your original account and re-creating it. Bit messy perhaps.
Failing that then google for "hang on loading personal settings". There are at least 11 pages, so you are not alone!
