Windows XP Home on Inspiron 8600 "hangs" on startup

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Hi,

I am having some trouble with my old Dell Inspiron 8600.

I reinstalled Windows XP Home with the original Dell disk without any problems. I then installed drivers for de devices that isn't supported by XP (Graphics card, Wireless network card etc.). The drivers I got from Dells support site.

I also installede 2-3 common programs (Ultra Edit, Open Office ie.) and everything seemed to work fine.

But now, a couple of days later, Windows hangs at startup. By hangs I don't mean it freezes - it is displaying the Windows XP logo and the progress bar is moving.. and moving.. and moving.. :)
You get the picture, it just stays like that forever - no error message, no failures, no nothing - just the logo and progress bar.

I can get into windows if I boot in safe mode - and even in Safe Mode with networking - and it "works" fine, but I can't find any error messages anywhere.

I was told there was a ntbtlog.txt log file in c:/windows I should take a look at - but that seems to be reset every time windows boots, so by the time I get into safe mode the info from the last boot is long gone :(

Do you guys have any idea where to look? It's kinda hard to debug without any error messages at all :)

Best regards, Lasse
 
Oh, and by the way, in the process of installing I also made sure that servicepack 2 and various updates was installed - so the computer should by up to date with the latest fixes.
 
Update

Just wanted to update the thread - I "kinda" solved the problem.
Well, I don't really solved it, but I know how to avoid it in the future :)

I seems that I have shut down the computer with my external USB drive (Thermaltake case with a 2.5" disk in it) attached - then, when I tried booting windows, the drive was not attached - and therefor it hangs on startup.

If I simply plugin the external USB drive, Windows starts just perfectly.

Furthermore, if I detach the drive when in windows and then shutdown the computer - it starts perfectly. And I can reproduce the error.

I now know how to avoid it and that is fine by me. But if anyone know how to fix this, I will appreciate the info :)
 
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