When my computer is turning on it stops when it gets to the blue screen with the xp logo. It will not continue to where you log on.

Until somebody else chimes in, I would try pressing the f8 key before Windows boots and then select the option to boot into last known good configuration.
See if that fixes it first.

What does the error say?

There isn't an error message displayed - just a blue Windows screen that says "Microsoft Windows XP". I was able to F8 into the safe mode screen but when I selected safe mode the system displayed a bunch of file paths and then went back into the blue screen.

This thread here sounds almost exactly like what you are going through.

http://www.d-a-l.com/help/windows-xp-help/...paq-nx6110.html

Do you have Windows CD?

The link provided by rokytnji is exactly what I'm experiencing. The problem now is I can't find the Windows CD. Any suggestions? Thank you both for all your help.

I don't think my computer came with a Windows CD. I'm discovering via the HP manual that it didn't come with recovery CDs. Looks like I was supposed to create them. I'll continue reading the manual for instructions...

What is the brand, and model of your computer?

Hopefully your manual will give you some hot key strokes to access the Windows recovery section on your harddisk. The only thing I know of (thinking outside of the box here) since I am a linux user, is to recover your O/S recovery file/partition onto a USB flash drive using a Linux live cd like Ubuntu. Broni is waaaaay better than me on Windows only solutions, so I will defer to him on this one.

It's an HP Pavillion 734n - a bit of a dinosaur. I did find a way through the HP troubleshoot site to get into the pc system recovery by pressing F10 repeatedly during reboot. I'm in the recovery process now. Hopefully this works. I'll keep you posted.

You understand, that all your data will be lost?

Yes. I did create a backup CD of important stuff not too long ago.

Cool :)