Hi.I have a Dell Inspiron 6000, running Windows XP 2000 Home Edition (SP3). I've had Norton Internet Security for years, so the registry is checked daily, with whatever small repairs may be needed. Doesn't need defragging (less than 1% fragmented). But!!! I ran CHECKDISK just to see how things were looking and it went thru 4 of the 5 steps with no apparent problem. The 5th step (which name I don't recall) got to at least 75% complete. I went out for a meeting I had to attend, and when I came back, it was BSOD with the "IRQ_Less_Equal" bit, AND the following: (0x0000000c, 0x000000ff, 0x00000000, 0x80532a04)I assume these codes more specifically point to the problem. I cannot boot up. When I hold F8 or even F10, I'm given the opportunity to reboot in a variety of modes, and I always choose SAFE MODE, since BEST PREVIOUS BOOT [sic] doesn't work. I choose SAFE and confirm Windows XP Home Edition is what I've got, then get a DOS page of drivers. You've seen these mentioned elsewhere on this site. Things like "multi(0)" and then even though the computer light is flashing like it's doing something, the page just sits there. I'm unable to manipulate it at all. I'm freaking due to the content on this computer being critical, and my inexcusable failure to back up any of it. I'm not super computer literate, but given specific steps, would surely be willing to do whatever I can to get that data back, if not get the 'puter running (which until I ran CHKDSK, it WAS!!) Please, if you can assist, I'd be massively grateful and would back up everything I ever own faithfully! Thanks and, here's hoping...1 person needs an answerI do too

There is no winxp 2000 home edition, there is winxp homeBSOD indicates a driver issue, your safe mode boot screen shows the driver its hanging on.Presumably you dont have an actual winxp disk to attempt a repair (and even then you would need one containing sp3)If your data is critical, and I must say haveing no data backup kinda says it isnt, then you would be advised to remove the drive, connect it to a working PC to recover data, before attempting any repairBTW With a PC if it aint broke dont attempt to fix it (chkdsk etc)

When you choose Safe Mode, what is the last thing on your screen?If it is mup.sys and XP thinks there is a chkdsk pending, XP will run chkdsk behind the scenes and mup.sys is the last thing you will see until the chkdsk finishes.For example (if anyone would like to try it)... if you schedule a chkdsk to run on the next reboot, then reboot in Safe Mode, your screen will appear to be "stuck" on mup.sys when in reality, the scheduled chkdsk is now running. You can tell the system is not really "hung" since the hard disk light will be flashing. Eventually, the chkdsk will finish and the booting will continue.Sometimes folks will complain their system is hung on mup.sys when (if you ask the right questions), you would find they suddenly remember they have a chkdsk pending and that is why their system appears to be hung on mup.sys.This is not to be confused with the other times when there is no chkdsk pending and the system appears to hang on mup.sys (that is not the real problem in that situation anyway). In those situations when there is no chkdsk pending and the last thing you see on the screen is mup.sys, the system is not really hung on mup.sys - it is hung on what comes after mup.sys (and you can figure out what that is and fix it).Depending on the size of your hard drive, what options you may have chosen with chkdsk and what chkdsk finds to do, the chkdsk can take a long time - hours, days or weeks (so says Microsoft) . On a 1TB drive I have, I think chkdsk takes over 2 hours to run even when there is nothing for it to "do" (I don't know exactly how long, but I know that I can't stand it).So if you are "hung" in Safe Mode on mup.sys, and your hard drive light is flashing, you should try to wait it out because XP is just doing what you told it to do, which was run chkdsk. I cannot say what will happen if you get impatient and push the power or reset button while chkdsk is running...If you want to salvage your data off to an external drive, you can do that too - you don't have to move the hard drive to another machine and many people don't have the luxury of another machine. You can boot your system on a bootable CD you can make (no XP media required) and just copy your stuff to an external USB drive or a big USB flash drive.I would use Hiren's since it has many troubleshooting and recovery tools built in and has the look and feel of XP and is a little friendlier to average people like me compared to the Linux/Ubuntu CDs (too many instructions and too much work if you are not used to it).Do, or do not. There is no try.I decided to save up points for a new puppy instead of a pony!