If the mouse won't work to click start > turn computer off.
You'll probably have to press the power switch to turn the thing off and then restart.

Ctrl + Alt + Delete
brings up the logoff/shutdown dialog window.

I tried Ctrl + Alt + Delete before I posted > no go.

I had to force a shut down on my laptop.

I went back in and click the safe mode option. Got to what I wanted to preform and things don't seem right.

Should I be doing a disk error checking on xp before a defrag? Cause I did. It's setting at phase 4 with boxes appearing in the scan line that are grayed out.

Win 98 was so easy I feel like a newbie with XP. Very frustrated at this point.

Disk Error check before a defrag is good practice but not required.

When you are in Safe Mode and want to quit you need to get into msconfig and uncheck safeboot. Then restart and it should come up good old XP.

Uncheck Safeboot > Apply > Close MS Config > Restart

It may be in the BOOT.INI tab. Or it may be in a section called "To Use the System Configuration Utility to Start WXP."

To get to msconfig click Start > Run > type msconfig > OK This works for both safe mode and unsafe mode.

Gave up on safe mode late last night ran error checking and defrag without a problem.

mxyplx, My first attempt the screen was black with safe mode in each corner. No options, icons or taskbar to click on and no response to keys or arrows. I read your reply today to late for the second attempt:-(

Right. I didn't catch that your screen was black. Sorry.

Type "Safe mode screen is black" in Google - lots of possibilities.

For one guess it might a been possible to have right clicked the black screen and see if "properties" came up then change the resolution etc. I recall Safe Mode is 640 X 480 and if your system didn't automatically change to that for some odd reason it might have caused the black screen.

Ctrl + Alt + Delete normally brings up a logoff/shutdown/task_manger box in this screen. Which is the screen you get after closing the cmd window, when logon was SafeMode to Prompt.
Apparently something was hanging in safe mode not letting that version of task manager to start.

Event Logs may have recorded something .

Mikie, your screen print is almost right on. The ms version and build took up the whole screen on the top I could see safe mode under it. The screen resolution may have caused it?

Thinking my other post may have played a role> hungapp errors-LONG?

Thanks for comming back to my post!