The external will make absolutely no difference at all. You probably need to boot from your windows CD and do a repair.

Ok thanks. I'll try that tonight when I get home from work.

I tried booting from my windows cd. I got to a blue screen that said Windows Setup in the top left corner and at the bottom where the task bar usually is it said Setup Is Loading Files. Then it was showing all kinds of different drivers, controllers, adapters, etc. that were being loaded. After that it said Setup Is Starting Windows...then it shut off. I tried again, but didn't get as far before it shut off again. On the windows setup screen there was an option to hit f2 for Automated System Recovery. I tried this the third time, but yet again it shut off. Any ideas or suggestions?

Thanks

In that case you may have faulty ram. Google and get memtest and run it for at least 7 passes. If you get any errors at all then your ram needs to be replaced.

I can't download memtest cuz my CPU won't stay on long enough. I have 2 512mb sticks and four slots. I tried each stick separately in each of the slots. One pass performed a chkdsk and it stayed on for about 6 1/2 minutes but then shut off when chkdsk was done. Every other time it shut down in under 2 minutes.

There is something very seriously wrong with your system, you may well need to take it to a professional.

You may be right. One last thing. Is it possible that if the hdd has numerous viruses, that could be the cause of it shutting down all the time?

Nope! It's not possible if it shuts off while installing from your windows cd.

One thought occurs. The ram sticks, do they have any labels on them showing their speeds?

Pc2-3200 ddr2 sdram

Are both sticks identical?