I have a Sony Vaio PCG-9B3L that wont start Windows XP Home Edition.
When I turn the computer on I get the normal SONY name on the screen then the Windows XP start screen. After a few seconds the screen flashes some kind of error screen then reboots. It is so fast that I cannot see what the screen is telling me so I have no idea what the error is that causes it to reboot. it stays in this loop. I have tried booting to safe mode, but the same happens. I have also tried "Last Known Good", but I get the same result.
I don't know how to get out of this cycle.
Next I thought that i would just reinstall with the recovery disks that came with the notebook. The CD's will not boot. I went to BIOS and made sure that the CD-ROM is first in the boot list. It is first, but with no + to activate it. When i do so, instead of a + sign I get a !. I left it there, saved the changes, but it still wont boot to the CD.
Can anyone help me through this? I appreciate your help.

A few suggestions. Try hitting the Esc key when the XP start screen comes up.
The "!" in most computers parlance usually means some sort of error, same as in Device Manager.
Can you get to the repair console?

Holding the esc key down didn't stop the reboot, but it did bring up a menu after that allowed me to boot from the cd. I hope the recovery process goes ok.

Thank you for your help!

Boot off the CD (as in Windows XP) and enter recovery console. Type in ' chkdsk /? ' and then go for the option to recover bad sectors and perform volume scan (think it's chkdsk /p). This will correct any errors and also repair the Master Boot Record which is usually the cause of these issues. If this fixes it go online to www.Trend.com.au and perform a system scan for any threats that may have originally caused the problem. Let us know how that goes.