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I have a Compaq PC with windows xp installed on it. until recently it worked fine till it crashed. when i recovered my PC it worked fine, that is until i tried to reinstall windows service pack 3. then it started to blue screen on boot up, which was the original sign that it crashed. the stop message says something is going on with the BIOS as well as this

stop: 0x0000007e (0xc0000005, 0xBA258756, oxBA4C342C, oxBA4C3128)

Any tip on how i could fix this myself without spending money on a tech specialist?

Get the Windows XP CD, insert it into your PC and reboot the box. When it loads up, go through the menu prompts to REPAIR the OS. It will repair XP's Core files and allow you back in.

No tech specialist is needed, the menu prompts are very descriptive and will help you along the way. Be sure not to select a complete harddrive wipe and to choose the repair feature.

That is not a BIOS error. XP completely takes over all computer functions and does not use the BIOS at all.

If you have a recovery disc, boot that up and poke around to see if you can find the problem. There are several guides online which provide standard hints and tips. However, Windows is incredibly fragile and it depends on a good deal of stuff in the registry being correct with no easy way to validate it. That's why it is usually easier to reinstall the OS and restore the last backup.

If SP3's install is giving you grief, go back to a previous version, configure it, get a feeling for how well it works before doing the upgrade to SP3.