Inspiron 2200 possible crash?

Ok, so I confess, I know nothing more than the basics about computers.   I hate relying on something that I don't really understand, but maybe my current situation will teach me a lesson.  My computer has suddenly gone on the fritz, and I'm not really sure what to do.  When I start it up, it goes as far as the screen that says "resuming windows," then comes to a black screen.  The options here are "continue system restart" or "delete restoration files."  I don't know what this means.  When I continue the restart, it just goes completely blank and won't do anything.  I haven't picked the other option yet because I didn't know what that might do.  It was suggested to me that it might just be a minor problem with not enough virtual memory to turn on my computer with the files that were open when I last used it.  Everything was completely normail the last time that I used it.  Any help?  Is this the death of my computer?