On a scale of 1 - 10, how dead is my compter?!

[ApricotPoodle]

I'm remaining positive, it turns on so that has to be a good thing right?

It goes straight to the black screen with "you're a muppet" written on it, and various options for how I'd like it to start up, such as "safe mode" and "previously worked ok mode", but no matter which option I choose it then just seems to get stuck on the windows xp page, with the blue bar whizzing along the bottom, until eventually a blue screen comes on saying fatal system error message.

Tell me gently, is it time for it to go to lap top heaven?

Well it could have had the registry wiped by a virus as you know nothing I wouldn't advise trying to edit it.

Get a Linux live CD, boot the PC from CD (you may have to select the first boot device in the Bios settings because it might be set to boot from hard drive) and then see if you can get into the hard drive via Linux to retrieve anything you want to keep and copy it to something (USB drive etc), just remember to virus check it all before you re-install it on a windoze PC. because if there is a virus there it will effect linux in the slightest, it will just stay there dormant.

Oh and after you've done that (providing the CD works perfectly fine), format the hard drive and install a new OS, if it all works then you just had a virus rather then a mashed machine.

Oooh, thanks for that. I presume is I google linux live cd I'll be able to buy it from somewhere like Amazon.
I'll be transferring the important files to an external hard drive. From there I presume when I have sorted out the computer I just have to virus scan the external drive?

Generally you would download and burn your own Linux Live CD, but if you can't because your PC is trashed then you can buy a CD/DVD. I used to use the Linux Emporium, years ago. They have changed hands since then and their current list it seems terribly out of date.

There is a more up to date range at www.enjoylinux.co.uk, but I've not used them and can't tell you if they are any good.

I might suggest Linux Mint as an easy to use Linux version that will run happily as a Live CD.

Thankyou TAUP. I presumed it was something you usually bought. I was so confused by the hundreds of options on amazon I went to PCWorld and it wasn't on offer there. They did suggest they would charge me £80 to sort it out .

I have use of my work computer, so I could probably download it to a pen stick thingy, but then I don't know how to tell the computer to start up from the stick rather than the hard drive.

How do you choose the best version of linux? Would somebody mind linking me to one I can download myself and one I could buy (for if I can't work out the other bit) please?

Sorry, CAUP not TAUP. I was making you terrible rather than cruel!

Well Mint gets good reviews, SUSE has a live CD as does Ubunto, go to there sites to download and burn can you not get a friend to do it?

The best version doesn't really matter, what matters now is getting what you want off the PC and any live CD should do that, as it's all based on the same code what is classed as best normally is just which ones are the most supported by other applications and the nicest to use (all pointless to you right now).

You might not need to change the bios some PCs are set with the CD as the boot device anyway only way to know is to stick something in there at start up that it can boot from.

The Bios is the operating system for the chipset on the motherboard, it kicks in before the OS is loaded so should be working fine. when you turn the PC on you should see when it loads up (it may only be on screen a second) a black screen saying about stuff loading, at the top it will say the name of the company like "Award" and it will say press ...... for bios, normally it's something like F1 or ESC or something it depending on the bios, you hold the button down until a blue menu screen appears, you can only navigate that screen via the keyboard, so leave everything alone and find the primary slave/first boot device and use the arrow keys to change it to the DVD/CD drive. it might list it as D:/ drive then, hit entre or space (it normally tells you the key instructions at the bottom of the screen) Y for yes to save changes.

Do you still have your XP installation CD? You can use it to repair your Windows installation assuming the damage isn't too bad.