Safe mode broke (and more...)

[Guest]

If I try to run Win XP Home normally, after the logo with scrolling bars,
screen flickers once, then goes completely black. It still draws the mouse
and responds, not sure about keyboard. Have tried to initialize through safe
mode, but a long list of multidisk(0)partition(1) etc. scrolls and then just
freezes. I tried using an XP boot disk, but that doesnt work either. I get
the same effect for normal startup and safe mode. Even restore cds that came
with the comp dont work. Will load up to a blue screen and just freeze. But
something is running in the background because if I eject the cd, I get an
error message. I have been working on this for 2 weeks now and am completely
clueless. Someone please help!!!!

 

[Jerry]

Boot from the XP CD, tell the setup program to reformat the hard drive and
install everything as if it was a new system. Obviously all updates will
have to be redone along with a reinstall of all other software.

 

[Guest]

I'd jump for joy if that was possible, but win xp came prebundled and the
restore cds dont work.

 

[Guest]

I've also thought about installing my hdd in another comp as a slace then
formating it and trying the restore cds. But the only other computer I could
hook it up to is running win 98. I'm assuming win 98 would make it a FAT32
format. When installing win xp (which is what the restore cds would do) does
it automatically format the hdd to NTFS? Is this a plausible course of action?