trouble booting comp

[giz1981]

hi, i run windows xp home which came already installed on my second hand
comp. runnnig fine until one day a blue screen appeared and said if this
is the first time u have seen this message restart your comp. i did and
when it restarted xp didnt boot all the way and i had like a limited f8
options. start in safe mode, with networking, with command prompt, last
know best configuration? and start normally. none of them work, safe
mode with command prompt gets as far a system config? then stops and
does nothing for three hours. i have tried booting the comp and
pressing f8, this gives me some more options to try and start the comp,
but none of them work. i am about to put my comp into a shop for repair
but was hoping someone out there could save me £60 i dont have. (any
phrases followed by a ? are not exact but it should give u the jist of
it)

thanks in advance.
gareth

 

[Rich Barry]

Did you recently add any new hardware?

IF, you have a WinXP CD you can try a Repair Install. Check here for
further info.
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

 

[giz1981]

i dont remember any new hardware being installed prior to it dying on
me. i did install some software that converted mpeg to mp4's for my
psp. it was all working fine. i also ha msn messager installed and was
using it in a voice conversation at the time it died, could it be a
prob? i dont have a recovery disk, xp came pre installed and thats it.
what i realy need is to get a command promt in ms-dos, any ideas at all
will be greatfully recieved.