Computer won't stop restarting!

I am experiencing a major problem. My sister who is 1000 miles away, left me her Dell computer. She has all disk associated with windows xp.  I log on a couple of days ago and a BLACK screen appeared, the error message started:

 

We are sorry for the inconveinence, but a hardware or software installation problem has beed detected.

Then the options:

 

Safe Mode

 

Safe Mode with Networking

 

Last Known Good Configuration

 

Starts Windows Normally

 

were all in blue. And the system counted down from 20. When it reached 1, it restarted.

 

I've tried all of the options, all of which restarted my computer and brought me back to this same black screen. I've tapped F8, and the options:

Safe Mode (SAFEBOOT_OPTION=Minimal): This option uses a minimal set of device drivers and services to start Windows.
• Safe Mode with Networking (SAFEBOOT_OPTION=Network): This option uses a minimal set of device drivers and services to start Windows together with the drivers that you must have to load networking.
• Safe Mode with Command Prompt (SAFEBOOT_OPTION=Minimal(AlternateShell)): This option is the same as Safe mode, except that Cmd.exe starts instead of Windows Explorer.
• Enable VGA Mode: This option starts Windows in 640 x 480 mode by using the current video driver (not Vga.sys). This mode is useful if the display is configured for a setting that the monitor cannot display.
 
were displayed!

all restarted the com. and took me back to the BLACK screen.
 i am all out of answers. I really hope I don't have to clean house and erase all of her files to get this thing back working.

Please help

Thanks KING