aspnet_wp.exe hangs in virtual directory

[bpssolutions]

hi-

i'm going mad over here. any help would be greatly appreciated.

aspnet_wp.exe hangs whenever i browse to the virtual directory in which i am
developing, sucking up all CPU time.

any browser directed at any page in this virtual directory will hang
indefinitely.

i'm running windows XP SP2 with IIS 5.1. i'm up to date on windows,
security and VS patches.

i know this is not an issue with my code because i removed all code that i
wrote today and restored last night's backup. i've rebooted and rebooted and
rebooted. i blew away the IIS virtual directory and recreated it. no dice.
i have all updates for VS2003 installed. i'm running the most recent .NET
1.1 version.

i can open the solution in VS only in the following way:
-open VS.
-open the solution (aspnet_wp.exe starts and begins sucking up all CPU
resources)
-VS hangs trying to contact IIS.
-kill aspnet_wp.exe.
-VS finishes opening solution.

i've tried running the solution through VS in both debug and release mode,
but it still doesn't work.

i've tried hitting it from outside VS via IE 6.0 (and firefox, for good
measure).

i created a basic webform with only one server control: an inactive label.
doesn't work.

oddly, though, the HelloWorld.aspx that i created in the root IIS directory
(c:\inetpub\www root) works fine.

i turned off the windows firewall and rebooted. no dice.

i've been through the KB but nothing seems to match my particular issue.

the closest things i've found are the hotfixes referenced in KB article
887544. specifically the issue 841195 (though i have NO performance, not slow
performance) and 843400 (because i was accessing the session, and connect to
a SQL Server DB, though at no point do i write session-state info to the DB).

i've been a programmer long enough to be wary of the 'I didn't do anything,
it just stopped working' protestations, but as far as i know nothing happened
except that i compiled it once and it worked and compiled again and it just
hung.

this code is pretty benign and uncomplicated. other portions of the
solution do use an unmanaged COM object, but nothing i wrote today touches
that at all.

any thoughts as to what might have happened and how i undo it?

i'm pulling my hair out here.

thanks.