More info in response to a post on another forum:

Sorry, was more looking for new computer suggestions.

Computer was giving me BSOD. After much effort, Dell said replace the memory, that didn't help. Still crashed, often on boot up, sometimes soon after. No patternb. We used the CD and tried a Windwoes Repair, but it won't reboot anymore after that. IOW, it wouldn't reboot at all after we did the repair and it reached the reboot point. Freezes up with the XP screen and the little blue things running across the screen. That's repeatable. At a friend's suggestion we installed a new copy of Windwoes in a new directory and it boots fine, but of course is naked and dosn't even see the second montior. That would seem to suggest Windwoes is corrupted, seems to me. Dell's answer is to reformat the hard drives and start from scratch. Given how much effort that would take, this computer took the better part of 1.5 weeks to get everything loaded and set up, rather just start with a new computer without a history of problems. :-( I do have, supposedly, full back ups, but who knows. My orevious luck withy those has been less than great. It's a Windwoes backup, no floppy, which supposedly means soemthing to someone who knows. Data is backed up online. I can see the C: drive using the new Windwoes and can likely copy it to a USB drive so I guess that's a good thing. <shrug>