When windows starts up it says all this carry on about sorry for the inconvience but XP has encountered a problem. it gives the option of starting in safe mode and Last known good config. but which ever one you chose it goes to disk check and reboots. so it just keeps going round in circles. will i have format the hard to fix this problem? because i don't want to lose my files on the hard drive.

Please help!

Did you just install xp?

Did you just install an update? SP1 or 2?

Or did this just start happening "out of nowhere"?

You can do a repair install of xp from your disk without loosing your stuff:

This is a good guide:

http://michaelstevenstech.com/index.html

Absolutly Brilliant jephree. You are a legend. Don't ever forget that your a legend