Okay, as of now this is THE PROBLEM i am having, if you read this guy's post here...

http://microsoft-personal-operating-...1/Default.aspx

I am at the windows stop 0x00000006f part. now how did i get there?

Well my computer used to work. But whenever i would close windows, yes, just closing windows, my screen would go blank and leave nothing but the desktop. I would then have to restart my computer and hope that I would get more than the desktop. Sometimes it would come completely back and I could use it, sometimes it would show just the desktop background and I would have to turn it on and off again until it would work.
Then today, same problem, I had a window open, closed it, and the computer froze up. When
I turned my computer back on it said

Windows cannot start because the following files are missing or corrupt:
WINDOWS/system32/config/system

You can attempt to repair by inserting setup the original setup disc and press R at first setup screen (not word for word)....

now, i couldnt go into safe mode, debugging mode, nothing. if i tried it took me back to this screen.
so i inserted the windows xp setup disc and as soon as i do it says....
press any key to start setup.
i do and it begins to load.
blue screen....
then it gets to the point where......
the link.....this guys problem in the link i posted is where i end up.
i can't go into any screen i can't go into safemode. i can't press anything once the disc starts going. what the heck do i do?!?!

thanks, this has been a pain...
oh, so this is an insignia and the geek squad got mad at me because i called them the dumb*** squad and i swear like 5 of them tried to intimidate me, they circled around me like The Warriors or something. Best Buy sucks but hopefully somebody can help me. (im a mac man by the way this is an old computer)

thanks.
j

This looks like a hardware problem.
I'd start by re-seating everything in the machine-memory, cards, cables, etc. Blow out the dust/dirt.
You really need that CD to work to get anywhere, so you might consider a new drive, possibly a new power supply.

Hey there
I agree hardware problem.Reset BIOS first-no result?root to the last known action before the pain started.take it from there....

reply cos it sounds X-citing.

there is a fix for this ,but in my opinion the easies fix is to reinstall windows .
how to fix the missing or corrupt problem
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545

thanks for all your help everyone!
so I cracked open the tower and man was that thing dusty in there! cleared off all the dust and went into Bios...I changed the settings so it would read the XP disc from my DVD drive first. Once I did that it finally took me to the Windows setup screen that I wasnt seeing. (would never make it there-would give me the system error message in the first link I posted)....
It wouldnt let me repair so I am doing a clean install. I know I could have probably slaved the drive or worked around it but at this point a clean install is fine, not worth the headache!
Here are two links that helped me through my problem.
http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=11

and
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XP...l.htm#warning2

again, thanks for the help. For some reason I never thought about pressing F2 because all the options in F8 wouldn't work. But changing my settings after pressing F2-the Bios settings is what solved all of this.
Thanks again!

upadate- so everything installed (or did it)...
everything was looking good, xp installed, entered product key. but then. all i got was the desktop background again! so when it says "loading personal settings" when logging in....it goes straight to the desktop background with nothing there...I did see my McAfee thing pop up though. RRRRGGHH!!! i'll see what i can do. any more help would be appreciated.

I did see my McAfee thing pop up????????
did you format the drive or are you just doing a repair install of winxp .if it a repair install ,i suggest you format the drive,and reload winxp .if you have stuff on the drive you need then slave it to another computer to save important documents first though .

yeah i saw the mcafee startup logo pop up but that was it. so check this out. i popped the xp disc back in to see if i could repair again or something. anything. and it took me back to my original problem posted in #1.
i then popped the disc out, restarted it and now windows loads like normal but no background. i don't know what the heck is going on.
yes, i have already formatted the drive and did a clean install of xp. no repair install.
this is obviously a hardware problem i just dont know what.
so as of now, i get to the welcome screen, loads settings, but nothing actually loads. just my desktop wallpaper. this is after doing a fresh install of xp.

What was the last thing that was installed on this PC before the problem started? Possible that it could have corrupted a windows file. You could also do a parallel install to get to the files on the hard drive.

At this point, if there is nothing on the drive that is important, for times sake, just format and install fresh. I have seen many times in the past that some software/malware that gets installed ( like some of the toolbars ), that will corrupt the windows files.

Sounds like so far that you only did a repair or upgrade install and not a full install. If you do a full install, McAfee should not be working yet, you have to reinstall all of your software again to get it to work with a full install.

yeah, going into task manager i am now able to see that i still have all of my stuff. i can run commands and run programs but its just not showing up. Im thinking it has something to do with this...http://support.microsoft.com/kb/256194/en-us
but i can't seem to get this working right. I am going to mess with it, get my important files off and try to reinstall again. i could have sworn i formatted and did a fresh install. i certainly didnt do a repair install as it wouldnt allow me too....we'll see.
it's something in that darn system folder