Windows XP Home start up issues

Yesterday my laptop (Dell vostro) with Windows XP Home froze. My wife tried to restart and it went to the Error page. Options I have selected:

Start Windows Normally: Goes to Windows start up screen- never progresses

Last Known Configuration: Goes to Windows start up screen- never progresses

Safe Mode: Gives me a full screen of :
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS\system32\DRIVERS\WMILIB.SYS
with all different drivers listed. It doesn't actually start in safe mode.

I ran a diagnostic (F12 during start up) and it froze during the extended memory test

The only "new" thing I can think of with the system is that my 6 year old was repeatedly inserting and removing an MP3 player. The failure happened a day later or so. I haven't tried rebooting from disk yet. I'm waiting for some advice. Thanks for any help.
 
Thanks. I tried to do that yesterday, but ran in to an issue. I followed the steps on your link, and everything seemed to be going fine. When the computer restarted after reloading XP, it still hung up at the same spot, so I wasn't able to get in. Anything else I should try?
 
Thanks. I tried to do that yesterday, but ran in to an issue. I followed the steps on your link, and everything seemed to be going fine. When the computer restarted after reloading XP, it still hung up at the same spot, so I wasn't able to get in. Anything else I should try?

Try running a full harddrive diagnostics. It engages almost immediately after booting up. You'll need a blank CD in order to burn the free HD diagnostic utility from your harddrive manufacture.
 
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