Cannot startup with Vista Ultimate 32

[quaysman]

I have a one month old Dell Studio 15 that refuses to startup - I don't know what to do and would appreciate any advice forthcoming.

When I powerup I get to Login stage and enter Password. After a bit of a think, the screen goes to black with a grey Windows box telling me that Windows Explorer has stopped working, followed by another box asking if I want to send information about the problem. Either option leads me to a black screen.

If I try pressing F2 to go to safe mode during powerup, I go to Windows Error Recovery page. If I select Safe Mode, it loads all drivers down to AVG, then goes to black screen with cursor before Login Stage. When I enter password I get:

WerFault.exe - Application Error
The exception Privileged instruction.
(0xc00000096) occured in the application at 0x76d98f26.

When I click OK to terminate the program, I get the following:

explorer.exe - Application Error
The Instruction at 0x76d9e074 referenced memory at 0x00000000. The memory could not be written.

When I again click OK to terminate program, I am left with black screen with "Safe Mode" in all four corners and Microsoft (R) Windows (R) (Build 6001: Service Pack 1) centred at the top of the screen. All I can then do is poweroff by holding button in for 5 seconds.

Does anyone have a suggestion as to how I can go about fixing this problem. I really do not want to have to reformat hard drive and start again from scratch if at all possible....

Merry Christmas,

Quaysman
Sydney, Australia