I have an HP client box running Windows 2000 Pro that has been very stable for 1 1/2 years. It now will not boot past the splash screen without switching to a blue (Windows Blue-not BSOD blue) screen and then just hanging. The HD does thrash for about 2-3 minutes beyond that. The three finger salute has no effect. I have re-run Window's setup repair option with still the same result
I have not tried the fixmbr option under the recovery console for fear of losing some data I need to recover. The fixboot option is run under the repair option mentioned earlier. There appears to be nothing amiss while watching dll's load

Any suggestions would be appreciated

Thanks, Greg

There's a chance this is a failing access on the drive (with prolonged
retry sequences invisible to the OS, which just waits). To check,
download/run a diagnostic util from the HDD manufacturer's site.

Greg wrote:

Thanks...I will be checking out this drive. A subsequent running of install with the repair option seems to have worked, but I will be pulling off the files I need and running some diags at this point.....

FYI...Turns out this was the Netsky-D virus...not sure why this behaviour occurred however.