It's probably that NIC card, my guess is you put in the card, and the drivers didn't install, now windows is looking for them on startup in the config file and can't find them?
Have you tried taking the NIC card out and booting?
Do you think maybe as windows is booting, it hangs before it can boot from the CD?
I am old school, and install my OS from boot floppies, not CD ROM. If you have an a: drive, maybe have your BIOS seek that before the CD ROM, wipe the drive, and install your OS again but have the NIC card plugged in while you are installing.
I always install my OS with no cards in it, and add them one by one and have never had problems like that, though.
It just sounds like windows sees the NIC card, and can't find any driver information for it. So it hangs asking for config info.
It probably isn't booting from CDROM because it isn't getting to that point in the boot sequence where it can see the CDROM.
Maybe go to the website of the NIC card and see if there is any info, as well. They might have a solution where you can download and install drivers from floppies.
