Windows hangs at Mup.sys

I had to violently stop the XP and couldn't boot thereafter in any windows mode including safe mode (the boot sequence hungs at Mup.sys).

I spent quite time to read the possible troubleshooting but i didn't try to boot from a windows cd (just couldn't find it). i rebooted like 10 times at least and also changed the BIOS configuration for my processor - no luck.

in the end i just unplugged the cord from the pc , waited for about 30 seconds, plugged it back and then rebooted.

it worked beautifully.

it seems to be quite a nasty problem and more often related to the hardware damage (RAM corrupted, USB devices not properly detected, damaged processor). Anyhow, before doing whatsover, the first thing to do is probably to unpower completely your pc.

I guess it wouldn't work in every case but it's pretty fast to try this. It certainly saved me quite some time.