Well after installing a new touchpad everything was just fine for 2 weeks. Then it was lockking up etc after upgrading to avg2011 ( yes I've seen the thread). So a fresh install of XP Home and all is good again. All my programmes and files put back on and it was fine again for a few days.
Then it starts coming uo with the BSOD and critical errors etc ( can't remember what exactly was the message ). It always restarted Ok and went fine after that.
Now tonight it does it again and its on a loop with restart after restart. It wont boot from the recovery cd rom and now I'm lost what to do next. Any ideas??
You can access the bios and all seems Ok and the tools section allows you to check the disk and it says its OK as well.

Machine is a compaq pressario V4000 with all my megatune/tunerstudio files on it ( have them elsewhere but on an old pc in storage

HELP PLEASE

exact error messages would help but just sounds like a dead os.
when booting, keep pressing f12, this should bring up the boot menu just in case it's ignoring the cd rom, you can select it manually this way

the error message just flashes up and it goes off ( any way of pausing it?)

Oh and it won't start in safe mode or dos mode or any fecking mode???

[Edited on 9/12/10 by omega 24 v6]

run memtest on it to see if its a memory problem would be my first port of call, failing that could be the hard drive not likely to be much else

Try the Hiren CD, just goole "Hiren CD download". It's got all the utilities you'll ever need

Can you reset the bios to 'safe defaults' or something like that?

Well its going again BUT it looks like there has been a prob with the wireless card/board as it now will not work even after reloading all drivers as before. The wireless switch is not working/lighting up so I gues its a power issue.
The ethernet connection still works ok so I'll be able to update things through that.
thanks all for your comments/help.

Sounds like an IRQ conflict to me.
Personally unless Windows is essential I would just stick Mint Linux on it.

BT - you sound like a scratched record!

...but I agree entirely - if you can use a Linux distribution for everything you need to do then it's well worth making the jump. I use Mint on my main home machine, but the PC is dual-boot so that I can use Windoze XP for those programs that just won't work in Linux. I probably boot into Windoze once every 2 weeks...