Win XP won't boot past the Welcome screen

Hello, I am new to forums and would like some help/advice. My son gave me a redundant Win xp desktop. It worked immediately when I switched it on, but being inquisitive, I opened the case to determine if it was an IDE drive machine or SATA.drive machine. When I closed the IDE pc my problems began. It boots as far as the welcome logo, but no further. There are no CD's available so I downloaded a Win XP Recovery disc. This lets me get to the "blue" set up screen, and then the recovery console screen. After that, I am lost. How do I get the pc to start again, or do a system restore? I have been at this project for several weeks, and my wife is getting a bit fed up. Please help!!

 

in the recovery console run checkdisk

you will get to a screen that will ask which windows you want to boot to, should only be one so type 1 and press enter
if there is an admin password enter it, if not press enter twice
then type in:

chkdsk c: /r notice space between the k and c and between the colon and forward slash.

let run it will be a lengthy process depending on the size of the disc and the percentages will fluctuate this is normal, if errors are found and fixed, run again until no errors are found.

 

Elizabeth, many thanks for your prompt reply to my problem. I have run chkdsk about 5/6 times and it is now scanning 100% of the disc and showing no errors. However, the pc will not boot past the welcome logo which freezes after about 1 to 2 minutes. Is there any way that I can do a system restore in the recovery console?

 

https://forums.whatthetech.com/index.php?showtopic=105819

above has the steps to perform system restore from the recovery console