pc was working fine yesterday, and today it just refuses to start up, on win xp, it says that "start in safe mode, or "last known configuration tht worked, it just goes to xp logo loadingg screen and a flash of blue screen with writing but too fast a flash to even read it, im on borrowed laptop atm, anyone experianced this? i can reformatt cos I still got loads of my pics that need backing up

I'd suggest getting a linux live CD boot off that and check the HDD from that. try this one
http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/download

Good luck.

downloading thx