It does not make any difference how it was shut down, normally or through a power cut, or reboot whatever..it will not go past the first screen (XP intro?) but hangs there for as many hours as I will leave it. Nothing seems to be happening in the computer either, no HDD noise etc. I do a manual shutdown from that screen, select safe mode, it boots up, then I shut it down again and re-start and it works. Runs well when it is working. It is PC I made myself, and I have good parts in it, using P4 and good bus speeds, and uses an old copy of XP that does not have SP2 so I have to add that after loading the OS. Unfortunately I live in a place that has almost daily power cuts, so leaving it running all the time is not an option...