Its an HP a1010n, running XP Home Edition.

The PC starts up fine but when it is shutdown through the start menu it will freeze on the HP screen when the computer is restarted. But when the power is removed from the back of the tower and plugged back in, it will start with no problem. The pc will not freeze if it is already on and restarted by selecting the restart icon on the start menu, but if you select shutdown and then try to power the machine on manually thats when the problem occurs.

It might sound a little confusing but it only freezes when I try to turn the pc back on after performing a shutdown.

I updated all the drivers using driver detective, any help would be appreciated.As I'm sure you know, hard shutdowns are not good for the system (you should run chkdsk /r from the Recovery Console frequently if you continue to do that).

Let's make a few registry changes (if you are comfortable in the registry) and see if it helps. Also, I'd be curious to know what happens if you try to shut down from within safe mode.


Here are the changes:

1) Make sure "clear pagefile at shutdown" is not enabled:
start - run - REGEDIT
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management]

Set ClearPageFileAtShutdown value to 0


2) Start - Run - Regedit
Navigate to the following Registry key:
HKEY CURRENT USER\Control Panel\Desktop
Double click on the AutoEndTasks entry and replace the 0 with a 1 in the Value data text box

For the NEXT two, if the dword value indicated does not exist, create it:

Double click on the WaitToKillAppTimeout entry in the right pane and change the Value data to 2000

Double click on the HungAppTimeout entry in the right pane and change the Value data to 1000

Reboot

3) HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control
Right-click on WaitToKillServiceTimeout and change it to 2000I changed the registry to what you stated and nothing, when I shutdown and restart it freezes on the HP screen. It still boots up fine when I select restart instead of shutdown. The problem is only when shutdown is selected.

Same thing happens on safemode.i am fairly certain its a hardware issue
reseat the ram
download memtest and burn it to a cd and let it run 4 passes
inspect the motherboard for bad caps
1. HP Logo. Is this the logo that's displayed instead of the POST diagnostic screen? Disable it so we can see the POST diagnostics during boot. See Logo Startup Screen is Missing for instructions.

Are there other settings in that area of the BIOS related to POST diagnostic tests/display? If so what are they? Probably want to ENABLE all available POST diagnostics while troubleshooting this issue.

2. USB Devices. What USB devices, if any, are connected during system boot? Disconnect the ones you don't need and see if that makes a difference. In other words use a PS/2 keyboard if you can and disconnect all external USB connections (including the mouse - don't need to boot).

3. Ntdetect.com. Any chance you have a bootable floppy drive (or possibly USB flash drive)? It's possible to create a boot floppy replacing NTDetect.com with NTDetect.chk to display debug output as it attempts to enumerate hardware devices during startup.

Actually, if you're feeling "lucky" you can replace ntdetect.com on hard drive with ntdetect.chk for troubleshooting purposes. Rename ntdetect.com to ntdetect.bak; ntdetect.chk to ntdetect.com.
How Windows Starts Up (Part the second)
Use Ntdetect.chk to Identify Hardware Problems in Windows 2000

NTLDR
Ntdetect.comIf this happens from safemode I have to agree it does not sound like a software issue.It was the memory stick all along, I had run the memtest before but only let it finish through 2 passes, so nothing came up. Luckily I had a spare stick around, popped it in and shut down and powered up smoothly.

Thanks everyone for your help!!!