When Windows first starts up it displays a screen with the Windows logo known as the splash screen. To see what is going one behind it use notepad to edit the C:\boot.ini file (to see the file listed, you may need to set your Windows Explorer, Tools, Folder Options, View to see hidden files and folders, and to unhide protected system files). You'll see a line that looks similar to this:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect
Add a space and /SOS to the end of the line so it looks like this:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect /SOS
The boot.ini file can also be edited in Windows XP by right-clicking My Computer than choose Properties, Advanced, Startup and Recovery, Edit.
