What you are seeing is the most-basic VGA driver settings. You blew out your video-card driver somehow. Try downloading and installing the latest version of the drivers for your card or chipset.

That would explain alot, can you tell me how I go about doing that? I have no idea......
Thanx for at least a clue to what has happened, can you tell me what I should do now?

Your computer uses video card drivers to tell the video card what to send to your monitor. When your video card drivers stop working, Windows uses its built-in basic drivers (what you're using). The reason they're so yucky lookin' is because they're generic drivers meant to work with all video card makes and models for all computers.

First you need to know your video card manufacturer? Nvidia? ATI? etc. Then, go to the respective website and download drivers for your card and then just run the install program you downloaded. (If it's an nvidia card it's easy, because nvidia made it so that the same drivers work with all their models.)

Unfortunately, we can't help you unless we know what video card you have to point you in the right direction. Try going into the control panel and then to the Device Manager. Is a video card list under "Display Adapters" on this list? Do any devices have a red exclamation mark or yellow question mark next to them? (That indicates drivers aren't working for a selected device.) If so, let us know !!

aida32 will install and tell you what video card you are running and anything else you want to know about your computer and its not that hard to use .

http://www.webattack.com/get/aida32.shtml

it could have happened via bad shutdown, Fat32 has ez file cruption ;D

Try going into DOS mode and type "scanreg /C" Thay will take you computer back up to 5 days. It worked for me on several occasions

Dispay problems:
The monitor appears to power up when the computer is switched on but then shuts down again, the harddrive, cd drives etc seem to be working alright any suggestions?

Make sure monitor cable is connected to the video connection on the back of the tower properly .Try the monitor on another computer if possiable

Most likely it's that the mode that Windows is switching to for the Desktop is incompatible with your monitor. Boot in Safe Mode and right-click on a free area of the Desktop. When the pop-up menu appears, go to Properties. Click on the Settings tab and set the resolution slider to 640 x 480. Click OK, then reboot. You will probably come back up in 640 x 480 mode, 16 colors. Again, right-click on a free area of the Desktop. When the pop-up menu appears, go to Properties and click on the Settings tab. This time, click on the Advanced button in the lower-right corner of the Properties box. Select the Monitors tab and choose your monitor from the list. If it's not shown, let me know your brand, model, how old, and screen size -- I'll suggest a close match.

You may have to reboot one more time before being able to adjust your resolution and color depth, but you should be able to get it working to your satisfaction in the end.