My home version of Windows XP absolutely refuses to start up.  For weeks now if I restarted or shut it down I would try to start it up and it would go to the "Failed to start properly" screen and ask me to choose one of three Safe Modes, Last Configuration That Worked, or Start Normally.  I could either let it do its 30 second countdown or choose manually, but either way it would go to the scrolling bar screen to make me think it was starting up, and then it would black out and restart.  It began to take 30 minutes to an hour to startup successfully, but now refuses to startup at all.  It'll take me to the selection screen (as if I used the F8 key), but no matter whether I let it countdown or choose any of the options it will freeze everything.  The only thing I am able to do is hit the 'DEL' key selection before it reaches this screen, and looking through there hasn't shown me anything that stands out as something I can tweak to fix it.  I haven't downloaded or installed anything recently (ATLEAST nothing I didn't already have and had reinstalled), and even before then I was experiencing difficulty.  My dad tells me I have a virus, yet my scan ran automatically every night and I never had any results upon checking it the next morning.  I fear more than anything losing all my files.  My father wishes to reformat, yet he has done this to me already this year after I have stored many years' worth of information on the computer.  I have finally REACHED a happy medium, and he's wanting to reformat all over again.  Losing all the things I worked hard to make up for my great previous loss will absolutely drive me into a breakdown, so if anyone can please help it would be appreciated so very much.  If you have any questions, I will try to answer them to the best of my knowledge.  Thank you. Quote

I fear more than anything losing all my files.

I have just created a backup, but the problem is I had a passowrd to my user account, and therefore can't access it now from another account.  I have been trying for hours to run antispyware scans and find ways around my password, but it all seems so useless.  My computer still restarts when I load it with my old system, but I have no way of knowing what files may be corrupt.  I have already cleaned out spyware, but it was all minor stuff.  I really don't know what else to do.