Yeah probably although you could just buy a new PC and take things such as the HDD out.

Im pretty sure it possible to reinstall windows just by overwriting the old one.. just choose to install windows without formatting and keep the current file system...
+ it doesn't sound like your hdd fucked up... Might have been a virus that crashed it...

Simply you could repair windows using the installer disk. Place Windows disk in drive, reboot, hit F8 or F10 it's usually one of those keys, boot from DVD-Rom and follow on screen instructions for a repair. If that doesn't work or help, simply reformat. It's a good habit to reformat every 6 months if possible if not yearly. It helps boost performance as with all operating systems they become clogged over time.

I would not recommended ASUS, if you are not a computer literate person I would stick with the major brands like Dell, HP, etc. If you are computer literate there are plenty of sites out there that will build a custom "gaming" PC for you. If you want the basics for just web browsing, email and junk stick with the major brands.

download the trial of a program called burnin test. It will tell u what is wrong. It runs checks on everything. ASUS is the best.       http://www.passmark.com/products/bit.htm

thanks for the info on the problem i found a windows xp disc and tried to repair it but to no avail but i am taking the hdd out and going to try and run it as a slave drive on another computer and see if it will atleast respond and maybe pull some info off of it. im thinking that its a done deal 

For 1200 that system isn't bad. Wouldnt personally buy a computer from BestBuy but there aren't any upgrades that computer needs immediately it's running 9 gigs of RAM and a GTX260.

update , i went ahead and picked up the asus  and so far im digging it, after i get it settled in im going to see how she handles some games. 
the windows index score was 5.9 so lets hope i can runs some games.  
 
thanks for all the help i plan to fix and repair the old machine and make it my garage pc 

Just put the windows installer disk in and there's a option to fix the install.  If that does not work, time to reformat, hope you made a back up.

" real quick here are my stats for my pc; i have a dell xps 400  windows xp, dual core 2.80 Ghrtz processors, with 2 gigs of ram, 160gb hdd, another 1tb hdd internal, ATI radeon x600 (nothing real special there ).  and  i got the blue screen of death.. the problem lies in the windows system folder i believe because the error code says that the file is either corrupt or missing windows\system32\config\setup. so when i restart the pc the bios kicks in and then the post test runs but after that  nothing and i cant figure out how to fix this short of reformatting. everything that is important is on the back up 1tb hdd so im not to terribly worried about the 160 that is oem when i bought it.

so am i out a hdd or should i just reformat it with another copy of xp and move on or will  the hdd prob fail on me again, any help would be fantastic.

 

on a side note i am looking at buying a pc  but i found a good deal on  pc brand called ASUS and i dont know much about this company, are they worth it or should i just stick with dell???

again thanks for the help in advance.,

"

" thanks for the info on the problem i found a windows xp disc and tried to repair it but to no avail but i am taking the hdd out and going to try and run it as a slave drive on another computer and see if it will atleast respond and maybe pull some info off of it. im thinking that its a done deal 

i havent opened it yet but i just bought a new pc. i cant decide if i want to keep it though its a lot of money but if i do decide to keep it im going to upgrade the memory and vid card when i get the cash.

i need some opinions on the new pc what do you think ? is it worth the upgrade from my old xp machine and what recommendations on upgrades, im thinking about finally doing some major pc gaming as well as a home media center for my living room. here is the link to my new pc again ><  again thanks for all the help

"

Yeah, wipe that hard drive clean and reinstall windows. I also recommend getting a new video card.

" Yeah, wipe that hard drive clean and reinstall windows. I also recommend getting a new video card. "

and if it happens again install windows on your 1 TB HD