I have had my computer a year and a half and have not changed any hardware within the last 6 months. I have recently formatted and reinstalled on my comp after having a crash that corrupted a system dll (forgot which one). I now, 2 days after format, have the computer crashing about 15 seconds into bootup where it has just finished verifying DMI data. I believe either my HD has bad sectors and is losing data or my Motherboard is messed in some way. Also my computer used to be prone to random restarts unknown to me why. any ideas are much appreciated.

Random restarts in Xp are its countermeasure for having experienced some type of error. It would have been good if you disbaled automatic restart. To do that go to either contorl panel/ system or right click on your my computer icon on desktop. Itll take you to system and go to advanced then startup and recovery. IN there disable the restart. With disbaling it, it would have told you what files may have been at fault in the past. Usually sound or video card drivers.. This may be also the problem now that you have restarted. Its just taken a different form. Not restarting anymore but crashing on boot. Can you start your computer in safe mode? If so its most probably drivers of one of those things or maybe others.. The HD is also a factor but i doubt it. You cna always scan it urself,

I do not even get to the XP startup screen, I'm assuming its crashing the second it starts to access the XP files, I'm going to try booting from CD otherwise im out of ideas that don't require me to check my hardware individually.

If you are still having problems I would suggest you check to make sure all your devices,cables are seated correctly, ie video card, IDE cables, if this persists and you suspect your hard-drive is causing you problems you may want to do another clean install except do a low level format on your hard drive, some free software is available at www.killdisk.com , then you can reboot to your installation disk and re-install the operating system.