boot in MS-DOS mode

I was wondering if there is a way to coldboot directly into MS-DOS mode with windows XP, i know there was a way in win 98. The problem I'm having is that I'm trying to re-install XP on a computer which was believed to have a virus on it (I wasn't the 1st person to get it and I don't know what all happened to it before it was given to me). I reformatted the drive and re-installed XP two times but every time it goes to boot up as the XP loading screen comes up the screen goes blue and says there has been an error loading windows and it has been shut down to protect the computer. I wasn't sure if this would be a hard drive problem or maybe a problem with the cd I'm loading XP from? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

It allows me to finalize the installation, then it says it needs to reboot and will shut down... when it starts again it will ask if I want to boot from disk, which i ignored at this point cause it just asks me if I want to install XP again. I let it boot as normal and it goes fine up to this point:
http://i.cmpnet.com/infoweek/1094/langa_19.jpg
After about 2 or 3 seconds at this screen a blue screen comes up telling me that the error occured.

I have also tried to just repair the OS but that did not work either, the same thing happened.

 

I believe there is, its kind of long and I dont have the computer with me at this moment, I'll post it as soon as I get the chance.

 

sorry it took me so long to reply, once again this really doesnt help me much as now im almost possitive its a hard drive problem. the system wont even boot up anymore, it asks if you want to boot from cd and if you do not then it shuts down completely. in any case the computers owner, to the best of my knowledge, has ordered a new hard drive of the same make and model so the new task at hand will be installing that. thanks for the help tim, i did find the link useful for other purposes

 

yep, tried that right away.

 

Don't have another pc to put it in unfortunately. Plus i dont know if this makes any difference, but it is a laptop hard drive.