had you gone to windows updates and got the multitude of updates you would need after using recovery material to re install windows? If not that is probably what happened it started trying to download and install all those many updates and it locked it up. You may have even needed service pack 2 and 3 with a unit that old. plus of course all your antivirus programs etc would be trying to update also. It is always best when doing that kind of recovery where you will be very very far behind in windows updates to turn off automatic updates and go manually to windows update and first get your service packs in order and be absolutely sure to reboot the computer after each service pack, then get any remaining updates. I usually suggest getting them in small batches and creating a restore point before each service pack and before each batch of updates. Should something go wrong you have a good restore point to return to.

Ok thought I would post an update to give you a laugh for the day. Now I know some about computers as I learn stuff from boards like these and my guess is getting into control panel might have fixed it and if not I would have pushed the button to refomrat and take it to out of the box state. So my friends husband who knows nothing decided to fix it this weekend for her. His idea was to go to best buy and ask the geek squad. He expalined exactly what was wrong and you know what they told him? The only way to fix it was to buy a $200 copy of windows and put it right over top. I kid you not so that is what he came home and did to solve it. Personally pushing the button to take it to out of the box state which is free would have been a lot cheaper in my opinion but what do I know. Then her wireless did nto work after as what ever he did the drivers went missing so we got those from the toshiba site. She now has windows old and windows new it says on the computer. Hey at least he tried to help. I just don't understand why the geek squad would have said that and they didn't even say reformat or repair install or anything she said they just told him to plop it in and install right over top. I thought that was not recommended or have things changed? Mary

Thanks for the replies everyone. I was finally able to boot the PC up and retrieve my files. Mikie I didn't have a CD in but I think that it was trying to boot from one. I read that I could boot up from the Windows XP disc if I changed the settings by hitting F1 when trying to boot the PC. When I went into setup, it appeared to have already been set to boot from the disc and I wasn't inserting the disc. I'm not sure how this setting could have gotten changed (the computer was working fine last week)or if maybe I read the settings wrong in setup, but I changed it to boot from the HD and it booted right up. I am definitely ordering an external HD enclosure. Thanks again for the help!

Well, you guys aren't gonna believe this, cause I didn't. I figured out the problem - an iPod! What does an iPod have to do with anything? My mother-in-law has an iPod and she uses a little charger that plugs into a USB port on the front of my PC. Yesterday, while the PC was running, she came and plugged the iPod in - no problem. But, when I attempted to boot up - problem. On a whim, I decided to unplug the iPod and see what happened, because that was the only difference between yesterday and today. Sure enough, with the iPod unplugged, the PC booted just fine. Plugged it back in and the PC won't finish the boot process. Anyone else ever heard of this before?