Restart the system

Hello,
Desperate need of help! My laptop froze and I had to manually shut it off to restart it. When it restarted it came up with the black screen/white letters that reads:

"We apologize for the inconvenience, but Windows did not start successfully...etc..."

And it gave me options as to continue in "Safe Mode" and to continue normally...I've tried each of the options and each one results in a blue screen that flashes really quickly with white words but my computer shuts off automatically, not giving me time to read any of it. It restarts on its own and does the same thing. I've tried not selecting anything and letting it "start windows" in its own "in 30 seconds". And still it goes to the blue screen.

So I grabbed my camera and recorded it so I could pause and read it. What I see is that:

"A problem has occurred and Windows has been shut down to protect damage to your [somethingorother]."

And then it says that it could be because of hardware/software that's been unproperly downloaded or something and to make sure that it's downloaded correctly. But I can't get on the computer to do that! (Keeps shutting off after that.) Is this fixable? I can say goodbye to the computer - but I can't say goodbye to the files!!! Are they rescuable to put onto another computer somehow if it can't be fixed? Please help.

Configuration: Windows XP
Internet Explorer 7.0