Need urgent help please.

Hi, I'm new to the forums. I don't know much about computers but my friend and I are trying to figure this out... I have windows XP and, basically the computer keeps restarting itself. It begins to boot, leads to a black error screen asking me to choose how I want to start the computer (in safe mode/others, not sure exactly). Then it restarts. Can't get to the BIOS screen (i think that's what it's called).

My friend, who knows a little bit more abt computers, tried using a Windows XP floppy which didnt work. We tried the cd, started the computer from the cd and got to the disk partitioning blue screen. From there, we tried formatting the partition and since it didn't work, we deleted and created a new partition which shows the same error message as when we tried formatting the existing partition. The error screen says something like "The disk was unable to be formatted. The disk is damaged" and also something about SCLV or something.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. If there's any information that I left out that you need, please let me know.

 

Could be a bad hardrive. Go to your hd manufacturer's website and run diagnostic tools to see if the drive is ok.
-the new tech guy

 

Well my computer never gets to the windows screen so I'm not sure if i can run those diagnostic tools :/ This also happened to my old harddrive, and someone replaced it with a new one not to long ago.

 

No those utilities run off the systems bios. The bios is that black screen with white text that you see when you first start the computer. The scren that show windows xp and the loading bar is the splash screen for windows to show that it is loading. But what you do with the utilities on the disc is you insert the disc while the machine is booting and from there you can start with the diagnostic program. Im sure you can ask your friend to try to run that program for you and he will know what to do.
-the new tech guy