XP Home Laptop starts in safe mode, hangs@login in safe/w/network or normal

Hi,

A friend has been having problems with a laptop that is 'slow' and asked me to take a look, I uninstalled a bunch of toolbars and the Symantic LiveUpdate thing (using the add/remove programs control panel), (They use Avast).

When the machine is restarted it gets to the enter password screen and after 10-15 seconds (during which the harddrive is being accessed) it hangs solid, no mouse pointer, no caps lock light etc.

Safe mode works fine, Safe mode + networking hangs in the same place.

I've tried a last know boot, system restore, and disabling automatic restart, nothing from any or them.

I've also run the norton removal tool, no luck.

Also tried booting with wireless switched off, and no network cable, again no difference.

I've looked in the services list, and nothing appears to be obviously wrong, tho there is quite a bit of stuff in there.

So - am i right in assumeing that whats happening while the hard drive is being accesses before the login prompt is services being started?

If so Is there a way to get a list of services that are not started in safe mode, but are started in safe mode + networking (sm+net)?

and would one of those be the culpret?

Also is there anyway to find out what windows thinks it's using as a firewall - it might be trying to use a dead install of symantec.

Also does anyone know of a tool that runs in safe mode that lists the services that windows would start in normal mode or sm+net, and lists them in the order that they would be started? I could go through them one by one and see what happens.