Ok, I don't have a lot of information on it right now but here's the basics.

when you switch the pc on, it loads up untill you see the windows loading screen (with the loading bar) you see that for maybe 1 second, then there's a blue screen which disapears to fast to be read. It then repeats. Everytime you get this almost invisible blue screen and the reboot sequence repeats.

It gives you the option of all the safe mode/last good config/boot windows normally etc, but it will not even boot in to safe mode.

When you do it comes up with a whole list of what looks like file directories, possibly to drivers.

Start the brainstorming! (Pev will have to post exactly what her rig is, I'm not 100% sure)

I'm going to head in to town to buy some floppy disks and download the windows XP boot disks, as we don't have a copy of the CD here. Which is a right pain because thanks to MY pc I normally keep my XP disk to hand, but with the moving etc, it's not here.

I'll update you shortly.

Oh, I've tried;
All the different boot options (none work)
Removing all unnecessary peripherals from the back
Complete power down

Ok, I've donwloaded the WinXP setup disks and the don't seem to work at all.

I've gone in to bios, put the floppy as the first boot device and it just seems to read them forever. Making the same sounds over and over again.

I _really_ need a WinXP CD... If only I could run the repair!

Those errors that occur when trying to boot in to safe mode are all

yadda/yadda/yadda/yadda/driver/yadda

EDIT: Ok, now i've just put the boot floppy in and nothing. It read for a second, now it's just sitting there. This is getting weirder and weirder - Nothing at all on the PC has changed!

EDIT 2: Wtf...

Ok, I've just tried once more to use the XP boot floppies.

I get the following error:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v463/ ... C00062.jpg

Sorry for the crappy photo, on the left side, before all those 0000006 shit, it says "TRAP"

Googling suggests a lot of different things, Gonna run a Memtest. While I'm getting that I'm rebooting again - this time it is as before, it's just "reading" the floppy disk. Forever. I'll leave it a while and see what's going on.

Ok the mem test is running at it's on "Pass 22%" and we've hit an error

tst: 7
Pass: 0
Failing Address: 0002c98c7d4 - 713.7mb
Good: fb26d96b
bad: dd26d96b
err-bits: 04000000
count: 2
chan: (there's nothing written next to it)

So I'm not positive, because to be honest, I don't have a clue what that means, but it looks like the RAM might be causing the problem?

Mem test complete, that's the only error that turned up.

Pev is gonna go out on her break at work and grab a new stick for us to try swapping it out.

We'll still need to repair the XP installation I'm gathering.

I remember having a virus that caused my computer to bluescreen and restart all the time, have you checked on that (or can you check on that)?
Luckily i had 2 computers at the time and i could download and install a fix for it through the other one.

Other than that you'll probably want to wait untill somebody with actual computer knowledge posts a reply here.

well, that unfortuanetly doesn't give us much info. The driver loading thing is normal when you go into safe mode or whatever.

Do you have access to another pc? Probably. How about a cd burner? Probably. Download a "live" linux distribution, burn it, and try to boot off of it. If you're really running into serious memory errors (kinda looks like it) then the Linux boot process will puke too. Besides, if it does boot, you can use it to connect to your network and save files off the NTFS partition.

Alternately, if Linux boots normally, it's probably just Windows that's screwed up. Assuming there're no hardware problems, you're going to need to reinstall Windows...better find that XP CD.

Yeah, Right now the only problem is that the only CDR's I have access to are my Dads, and whilst he's got no problem lending me one or two, I already took 3 and fucked them up, having no money right now to buy more, It's on hold.

I think pev's looking at taking it down our local and getting him to run a repair off one of his disks.

Double blast from a double barreled shout fix it pronto. I know, sometimes im too violent

Yeah, That sounds like a good idea to me mate

Are CDRs like massively inflated in the UK or something? I think they're like 10 cents a disk here. DVDs are a tad more expensive. Either that or you're a broke ass mofo.

Anyway, good luck.

CDR's are too expensive over here, it's better to get them from computer fairs where you can get rolls of them for next to nothing.

But I really am broke, I debt and everything.

Heh... here almost 30 cents.

that's insane. Though if you're an idiot you can pay more for CDRs than DVDrs. There's always those freaky companies that sell disks for way too much. I wonder why the price difference is so significant? Are you paying taxes to the entertainment industry for the right to buy recordable disks?

i've seen CDR's for as much as £25 for 15. making it over £1.60 (just short of $3.20) per CD.

that was once, in a high street store.

However, I try not to pay more than £15 per 100 (£0.15 or roughly $0.30 per CD)

Just fyo here are most of tech-things more expensive than in the shop nearest to your home. In example there was an insane difference in costs of some recent Creative's products... in UK one card costed about 160€, in Serbia about 260€..

Guess whether I gave up of purchase or not.

About CDs:
In Serbia it is even about 50 cents for a 700MB CD. You would hardly find it cheaper, unless you are after worst no-name crap. Now what's wrong with 30 cents in Bulgaria: people's income is about 2x smaller in Bg than in Sr so they pay more for the same.