Computer Crashes: help-yourself first...

I had a computer crash last week,which I fixed myself and this is how I did it:

My computer was rebooting halfway and shutting down before completeing the boot so I could not get to my desktop screen or anyplace else for that matter. I called a computer technition and asked if he could get me started on diagnosing the problem myself and he said to do the following:

First test the PC for hardware failure by pressing the on button as usual and then clicking F8 over and over while booting the system.

After you get a black and white screen with a blue box in the middle with Boot Options, then you know it is a software problem and not a hardware problem.

Place the Windows XP CD into D: drive, then use the up/down keys to highlight the Boot-with-CD option (in the blue box) and hit enter, after XP CD-rom begins fix the operating system problem by clicking on "Repair Windows XP. It then re-installs Windows XP with whatever was lost/corrupted. If you still cannot fix the problem this way then you do need to troubleshoot your equipment and don't forget to check connections to power. If no solution after you do this, outside tech help may be needed.

This caused my PC problem: I played a CD with a corrupted Windows Media 11 update/download unknowingly and it crashed my computer by rebooting over and over ad infinitum until I pushed the button in for five seconds to stop it from doing so. Lumeriam