PC won't boot in either Win 8 or XP

I have a PC that I have been running Win 8 Consumer Preview since it was available. I have two HD's partitioned to dual boot Windows XP SP3 and Win 8, with Win 8 set as default. Everything has been working fine until this morning.

When I came out of screensaver and attempted to get to my login page nothing happened. So i shut down using the power button, after that Win 8 would not start, nor could I get to the dual boot screen. After a number of tries i finally got the dual boot screen and attempted to start in XP. XP nearly completely started (I had desktop, task bar, desktop icons, etc), but then it shut down as well and displayed a blue screen and error message 'windows has shut down to prevent damage to your computer....'.

I have tried starting from my XP install disk with the same error message ('windows has shut down to prevent damage to your computer....'. ). I have tried starting from USB flash drive that has my Win 8 Install. It is the same USB flash drive that i originally used to install Win 8. It hangs at the 'fish' screen. I have tried just starting the machine several times, but it hangs at 'Preparing Automatic Repair'.

I have everything disconnected (printers. ethernet, USB Wifi adaptor). The only things connected are my keyboard/mouse, speakers, and (1) 17" monitor. I normally run a 23" widescreen and the 17" monitor.

I have disconnected the slave HD and tried booting with XP install disk and USB Win 8 with no success.

Currently, both HD's are connected. I tried a normal start up and the machine is stuck at 'Preparing Automatic Repair'

This has never happened before such that I could not boot into either XP or the XP Install CD or the Win 8 USB Install flash drive, in order to attempt repairs to MBR or Win 8 troubleshooting diagnostics.

Any ideas/help would be appreciated. Thx!


[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Complete error message on Blue screen:[/FONT]


“[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.[/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]If this is the first time you've seen this stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:[/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Check for viruses on your computer. Remove any newly installed hard drives or hard drive controllers. Check your hard drive to make sure it is properly configured and terminated. Run CHKDSk /F to check for hard drive corruption, and then restart your computer.[/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Technical Information:[/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]*** STOP: 0x00000007B (0xF78D2524, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)”[/FONT]

The 'Blue Screen of Death' is normally caused by a Device Driver error, in some cases you will need to buy a totally new hard drive.

Try Alt+F10 and that should help you.