Alright, sounds like there might be a problem in your Partition Boot Record (PBR):

Turn the computer on, tap F8, choose Disable Automatic Reboot on System Failure - this will let you see the blue screen you're probably getting. Write it down verbatim and post it on here if you do get one.

Secondly, this should be repairable if it's just a bit of corruption, though there is a possibility that your hard drive's dying on you. Don't worry just yet, the first one is much more likely.

If it's just a simple case of a corrupted PBR, what you need to do is turn the system on, tap F8, and select "Repair my Computer." This will get you into the Windows Recovery Environment. In there, you can try the basics first - startup repair, if that doesn't work then tell it to run a system restore.

If and only if the previous steps failed:
Get ready because you're going to be rebuilding to boot record for your system (note: this will probably make it so you can't get back into WinRE through F8 - you'll have to get there by booting to the reinstallation DVD and choosing 'repair' from here on out.) In the command prompt, type the following, hitting Enter after each line:

bcdedit /export C:\BCD_Backup
c:
cd boot
attrib bcd -s -h -r
ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old
bootrec /RebuildBcd

This will rename your current Boot Configuration Data (BCD) store bcd.old and create a new one.
If this doesn't fix it, switch back to your old BCD by typing:
ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old1
ren c:\boot\bcd.old bcd
That way you'll get the easier to access "repair my computer" option again.

I used the Disabled Automatic Reboot on System Failure option and i didn't receive an error message but the computer got stuck on the welcome screen, it have done that before even before i started getting the PBR message, what i do when that happens is press the power button until the computer shuts down then restart it, but now that it happened after using the Disable Automatic Reboot makes me believe the 2 problems might be caused by the same thing. When the computer get stuck on the welcome screen i can still use the touch pad but i wait like 5 minutes and the computer never gets out of the welcome screen then i use the power button. I restarted the computer again after that and used f8 again but there was no Repair my Computer option that i could see.

Alright then, you can get into the windows recovery environment another way:

Place the Windows Vista operating system disc in the optical drive. Close any dialog boxes that open.
Restart the computer.
Tap F12 a few times as you see the Dell Logo.
When prompted, press any key to boot from CD or DVD.
Windows loads files.
In the Install Windows dialog box, select the appropriate information, and then click Next.
In the Install Windows dialog box, click Repair your computer.

Then go for the steps I recommended previously.

Message Edited by toadvine on 11-08-2007 07:44 PM

I am not using Widows Vista I'm using Xp, my system specifications are on the first post I tried to putting them on separated lines but somehow they all got added to the paragraph. Using the repair utility is the same for Xp and Vista?

Whoops, my mistake - can't imagine how I missed that, sorry.

XP doesn't have as friendly a utility to repair that kind of thing as Vista does - what I'd recommend instead would be trying to run a Repair Install on it. Use the same F12 - onboard/usb cdrom device - press any key process to get the XP CD booted up, press Enter to continue when prompted, F8 to agree to the lisence agreement and it should then give you an option to preform an automated repair on windows.

Click here for a screenshot walkthrough of the repair process.

Be aware that while doing this may get windows back up and running, it WILL cause problems with some of your programs. It's going to be rewriting all the XP files and the registry, so you might have to uninstall/reinstall some stuff afterwards.

The plus side is that you'll still be able to get at your data if it works.

If it doesn't work, you may be out of luck - hook your hard drive into an external 2.5" hard drive shell and pull the data off that way, plug it back into the computer and then CTRL+F11 on boot, it'll image itself back to the way it was the day you got the system.