PC Died

[BFCTom]

Whilst playing Age of Empires, my PC screen went purple for 3-4 seconds then turned itself off. Now everytime I turn it on it won't load windows and I get an error message about some kernal files are missing and I need to contact my support person.

So, what's the deal? Windows is corrupted? It's a SATA HDD so I can't put it in any of the other PC's in the house to get the data off.

Quite a few music albums/photos I would have liked to keep, but it's no big loss in the long run. Rather have my PC working again.

Maybe I should just buy a new HDD and save the old one to get the data off in the future?

So anyway, you guys got any idea how I can sort it?

 

[BFCTom]

Thanks for that so far guys, I've tried putting my Windows XP disk and but when it gets to the "entering setup..." stage, I get a BSOD and the PC restarts.

I'll give it another go in a while and report back. I reckon if I just order a new HD D and fresh install and it'll run again, but I'd love to get it working with the crrent one.

 

[BFCTom]

I need a hard-drive that will be compatable with Shuttle XPC ST20G5, will a Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB 2500KS SATA-II 16MB Cache work with it?