A big crash?

Hey, hows everything doing? I'm not sure if my problem is software or hardware related, but i think its software. My computer froze and i manually turned it off and then turn it back on on the main on/off switch. I turn it back on and the windows xp theme is not there. I have no internet, my DVD drive is recognized as a CD drive, task manager is practically empty and a lot of system stuff is messed up. I tried system restore, and nothing. Can anyone help?

 

start pc up in safe mode and c what happendz

 

Safe mode will launch Windows using a minimal number of drivers, and background processes... not too sure what that's supposed to accomplish. Suppose it would help isolate corrupted drivers....

Sounds like corruption to me. It was probably in the middle of a read or write transaction when you forced it off.

I'd try running the system file checker to replace system files with known good versions from disc.

 

Okey heres the thing. I went to devise manager and there was nothing there. So i reformatted last night and i thought everything was good. I had saved some stuff on a dvd, i loaded them on after the fresh XP install. I turn it off, go to bed, come back from school and find that the same thing happened again! Any ideas? I got into safe mode, but that didn't really do anything. Also something strange that happens is when i click F11 to load the boot menu to select safe mode, its asks me which thing i want to boot from and it gives me the option of HD and my CD/DVD drive, which never happened before...

Could this be due to my harddrive, because i got one a new one like 3 weeks ago?

 

Yes, could be.... post what make/model of drive it is... maybe I can recommend some diagnostics.

I'd also have a look at RAM. Running Memtest86+ will help eliminate that as a suspect.