Problem first started when i would be on the computer and it would make funny clicking noises and then would either restart or lock up (Poss heat prob not sure). But now it wont boot up at all , it goes as far as the xp window loading up and then restarts again. I can select boot in safe mode, boot normally etc but then just restarts and goes round and round in circles. Can anyone help

To me it sounds like your harddrive has had its better days. The reason it is doing this is because the section of the hard drive that xp is on is shot and the sectors are going bad. So when you boot it hits the bad part of the harddrive and makes the loud clicking noises which is the head being unable to read the disk, so it gives up and restarts. I had a similar problem with my computer a while back with a 20 gb and it would make a grinding noise and freeze up and you had to hit the harddrive to make it start. My problem was that the berrings in the harddrive were bad and were sticking. Yours is a bad platter in the harddrive. Try reformatting the hdd several times and see if it fixes the allocation units and if it doesn't I would get a new hard drive. I would go with a seagate 40gb at least. If it fixes it reinstall windows. Hope this helped you out. Bobby

hi thanks for your response how can i format the hdd when my computer wont start and wont run off win xp boot up cd, funny thing is my computer was running fine earlier except casual reboots any ideas.

Clicking noise from a hard drive means it's dead or dying!