Worse case scenario Dudemellow, Dell gave you a re-build disk didn't they? Make sure you save all you important stuff off of the PC (documents, pictures, music, game saves etc) before doing this.

I have not messed with the BIOS. Dell gave me the XP disk, drivers and utilities and applications. It all seems pretty generic. I'm still running the Dell diagnostic program but so far everything is checking out.

Ok. After tapping F8 continuously during boot I was able to select Safe Mode. My boot process stops right after;

Windows\system32\DRIVERS\agp440.sys

I think my next move is the recovery console on the CD, right?

Have a read of this before doing anything drastic..
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;324764

It looks like that is what I need to get back on track but of course there is a problem... I don't know the admin password... I didn't set it up, I have never messed with the admin account since I have owned this machine.

Dell will have to provide this for you as they installed the OS I presume?

EDIT: Altho I have recently read that the Dell admin password is BLANK!!
Read: http://seclists.org/lists/vulnwatch/...-Jun/0082.html

I've tried all the generic passwords... blank, admin, 12345... things like that... I'm trying to work with Dell right now (shudder)