All of a sudden my laptop with XP installed wont start up. It gets to the welcome page and then I get a box with a red circle with a white cross in it with two boxes marked yes and no. No matter which button i click it comes back to the welcome page saying it is saving my settings and then has a button at the bottom to switch off my computer. What do i do???

Hey Willdrury, welcome to PCHF.

Are you able to boot into safemode or have you tried choosing "Last known good configuration"?

The error that comes up gives no info at all , except for a yes and no button?

If Zimbo's suggestion doesn't work then give the instructions in the "Prework" link below in my sig a go , maybe there is some malware causing problems. You should be able to do that in safemode.

forgive me for being a bit slow but how do i boot in safe mode?

Not slow at all Will,

To boot into Safe Mode, restart your PC, as it starts begin tapping the F8 key on your keyboard, some computers beep when they get the command, some just bring up the menu options. Use your arrow keys to move up to Safe Mode and then hit Enter.

You may have to sign in as either Administrator or yourself. If you only have Administrator available, just hit enter unless you have created a password, because the default is no password.

TTFN

LGW