emulator hangs on start-up

Just starting wit开发者_如何学JAVAh Android development. Have installed Android SDK several times on a Windows XP machine following several sets of online directions and can't find the answer to my problem.

When I launch my AVD from AVD Manager, the emulator appears followed by 3 Java console windows. The Java windows close leaving a white rectangular area over the emulator and I'm left with the hour glass icon. It hangs at that point. I've let it run for a long time (~30 minutes) to see if it would ever get its head out of its butt, but no luck.

Any ideas?

This has happened to me a couple of times, and the solution -as bleak as it may be- was always to try it again. So I start the emulator, it hangs, I kill it, and start it right away. Most of the times it DOES work after this "have you tried turning it on and off again" method :)