windows restarts before welcome screen

whenever i turn on my computer it restarts right before the welcome screen

how this happend
i have been haveing problems with ie7 and i finally got everything to work but when i was uninstalling another program it said that there was still ie7 installed so i was like ok and i uninstalled when i restarted my computer it keept saying that some files were missing just like when i uninstalled ie7 the first time(when i had all my problems before) so i reinstalled service pack 2 hopeing that it would reinstall ie6 but when i restarted my computer it started doing what it is doing now

safe mode does not work along with anyother boot mode i could find

i was just going to reinstall window xp with my installation cd but i do not know how to go about it

can i reinstall win xp without formateing my drive? i want to at the apsolute minimum save my My Music folder

is this how you reinstall windows xp
on boot press F2 (opens system setup) go to OS install mode (turn to on) save changes... put win xp installation cd in drive... press F1 to continu...???

right?

if i did this what would happen next?
would that formate my drive?
what should i do?

Thanks In Advance

 

That was a tough read. That said...

When you press F8 to bring up boot options for Safe Mode and what not, there is an option for Disabling automatic restart.

Choose this, reboot, and see if a blue screen comes up.

 

yes there was... i will as soon as i get home

but could i reinstall win xp i would kind of want to make a fresh start

is that an option?

thanks

 

Sure. Not one I generally choose though.

Saving dsata becomes tricky without a second hard drive, however.

I'll link something to help.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316941

Install Windows XP to a new folder

The easiest way to attempt to save data, of course, there are always risks involved.

A true fresh start is format, reinstall though. This article will help with that, too.

 

when i disable auto restart it still restarts

when i go to OS intall mode and put my win xp installation cd in i get this screen

Alert! OS install mode enabled. Amount of memory limited to 256MB.
Strike F1 to continue F2 to run setup utility

when i press F1 it boots and does the same thing i have been doing

i do have a hard drive that is 1.58 gb with win 95 installed on it but i could only get it to boot in safe mode when i boot in any other mode i get this

wile intializing device NDIS:
Windows protection error You need to restart

i get no blue screen anyware

i did take my hard drive out and i am going to hopfully hook it up to my friends computer and copy the files to there and formate/reinstall win xp sp2

any other ideas will be appreciated

 

i have the hard drive connected to my friends computer but how to i get it connected ... i can feel it vibrateing but it does not register on the computer... how do i get it to connect

i am goign to copy my file to the other hard drive and and formate

 

lets just say when it comes to hardware i am a big noob

there computer is a dimension 8300 and mine is a 3000

there hard drive connecs with 2 smaller cables... mine connects with a cable labled p3 and so does the there hard drive ... but the other cable on my hard drive is gray and much bigger and labled HD Drive 1 p1361 foxconn c SYS BRD

 

my computer is at my house i am at my friends house

and i won't be home for 2-4 days

 

there is a emty slot on the motherbord that the ide cable goes into can i use that one... it is right beside the cd ide cable

 

there is no floppy... how would i know if it is for a floppy?

i hooked it up to the cd cable and the computer froze after the bios loading bar gets full... it would not even let me open bios settings

i hooked it up to the emty slot and went into the bios settings wend to hard drive something and went to slave drive pressed enter and it said under copasity n/a... so does it not recognize it or what?

 

bump... so what should i do