Normally, I wouldn't recommend this as a remedy for this particular situation, but it is possible the outage may have had an adverse effect on BIOS.

If it were me, I'd check the computer manufacturer's website for an updated BIOS version and try that. However, you may want to wait for additional instructions from the other members here.

Note: If you have recently flashed the BIOS to an updated version, then the problem you're experiencing may be related to this.Thank you for all your help, I apologise for bringing this BACK from the dead, but I have solved the problem.

I don't know which part has solved it exactly, but I put my windows xp disk in, went into that recover mode where you have to type command prompts, typed fixboot and then restarted.

Then I ran Tune Up Utilities, and ran a full disc check.

After that my desktop was coming up pretty quickly and no more weird loading bars, but it kept freezing for a second whenever I tried anything, so I ran the DEFRAGMENT analysis and it said 48% defragmented.

Since then I have just been defragging it for a few hours at a time, and it is slowly running better and better as each day passes.

I am not sure if it was the fixboot, or the disk check that fixed the bars, but all in all, tune up utilities is really sorting out my problems.

Just wanted to post this just in case anyone was interested or had this problem themselves in the future.Nice job
Thanks for posting back...Good News...
However if defrag is struggling that much i'd start looking at a new hard drive...they do GO bad.
There's an easy procedure to save your info so let us know...Yeah, I think my drive is pretty much dead, I actually put that at the end of my last post, but then deleted it as I figured it was irrelevant.

All I was GOING to do is buy a new drive, make it the master and then just install windows onto it and use the other one as a backup drive.

But if there is a way to just copy a drive from one to the other with all the games/applications etc being copied exactly to the other drive, I would be interested in hearing about it.

I was intending to just reinstall everything, and copy all my saves and things, but if there is a way to just copy everything, that could be very handy.

Thanks again for all your help, I was a bit unsure about resurrecting this thread, but who knows, someone else may have this problem in the future.

I have no idea what the problem actually was, but I managed to sort it, which is all that matters.New hard drive should come with cloning program.If it does not the Utilities can be had from the New Drive manuf. website...
Simple procedure:
Hook new drive up as slave.
Boot to the new drive manuf. utility CD.
Select the "clone" option and let it run to completion.
Power down.
Remove old drive completely and hook up/jumper the new drive as master.
Re-boot and you're back in business.
Once all apps and data check out as good you can then hook up the old drive as a slave ; format it and use it for EXTRA storage...Thank you, my friend