i dont know what the hell is happening to my computer but i re-installed IE7 and did updates for it and installed pokerfunclub. then rebooted. and then the loop of doom started. i managed to get into the bios and load fail-safe defaults, however this made things worse: i cant get into the bios now....
DETAILS:
1)gets to bios and loads all the usual stuff
2)gets to windows xp thing(windows xp+logo and the loading bar thing)
3)gets past the win xp screen and gets to black screen(like real black, no backlight or nothing)
4)the backlight comes on the screen and i see a black screen and then the hdd indicator stops flickering (like when xp usually loads) and after about 1 second the pc reboots into this loop of doom

i have a p4 @2.8, 256 ram, onboard graphics (intel extreme graphics) and ms-6714 ver 5

any help would be GREATLY appreciated, especially those that will not require to reformat (**horrified face**)

led

If you have your XP CD you could try a repair install. But before you do that can you get into Safe Mode at all. As soon as your PC boots start tapping F8 and you should see an "Advanced Options" screen. Use the arrow keys on your keyboard to highlight Safe Mode and press enter.

well i have an e-machines restore cd which whipes everything form my hdd and puts on what was on the pc when i got the pc. no xp cd if i get into safe mode what do i do?

Hi
When you get into save mode do a system restore to a time it was working ok
Norman

okay i went into advanced boot menu thing. disabled reboot on system failure and here's what i got:
STOP:c000021a {fatal system error}
the windows logon process system terminated unexpectedly with a status of oxc0000142 (0x00000000 0x00000000) the system has been shutdown

Id suggest doing a system recovery but im not sure what you have on your PC.

MS are well ahead of us on this one - have a read and work thru this: How to troubleshoot a "STOP 0xC000021A" error