ITWorks was started in 1989 and has a wealth of practical experience in all things IT. Originally, we focused on software development, specializing in database applications. This is still an important part of what we do, but since those early days, we have extended our services to include network installations and are now responsible for the daily maintenance of many Companies networks.

Windows XP problem

Windows XP Stops Responding at the Welcome Screen

A known fault in XP can give rise to this and it is unfortunate that Microsoft has chosen a dramatic message which puts users off from taking an easy step to resolve the problem.

You turn on your computer and the following message appears:

The last attempt to restart the system from a previous location failed.

Attempt to restart again ?

You're faced with two choices:

Continue with system restart ?

Delete restoration data and proceed to boot menu ?

In our experience, users are reluctant to take the "Delete restoration data ..." choice because of worries at possibly losing their data. Microsoft's choice of words is unfortunate and wastes users time and/or causes them to call in a computer engineer. The simple answer is choose:

[Delete restoration data and proceed to boot menu]

The problem stems from a corruption occurring when the pc went into hibernation mode and thereby shutting down. You can turn off Hibernation Mode if this problem re-occurs by going to Control Panel, Power Options, Hibernate

see: Microsoft Knowledge Base about this error: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/294427

see:Microsoft for details using Hibernation:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/mobility/getstarted/hibernate.mspx