my puter shuts down

My puter one day just started shutting down. I found out (so I thought) it was the monitor. It stopped for a short time. Now whenever I go to use my cdrw, it shuts down and keeps restarting until I take it out. I cannot do a repair on XP or reinstall. My floppy disc drive doesn't work at all and hasn't for a while. I'm networked to my other computer, but it doesn't show that I am. The other computer does. I have 2 hard drives on here, but only one has an os. I'm at a loss as to what to do. I've done virus scans (came up with nothing), and clean up. Help!

When you say: "Now whenever I go to use my cdrw, it shuts down and keeps restarting until I take it out."
Do you mean that you take out a disk from your cdrw or that you actually remove the drive?

What made you suspect the monitor and what did you do to fix it?

When you say: " I cannot do a repair on XP or reinstall": do you mean that you cannot because the cdrw is not working?

If so do you have another cdrw that you can try?

Also change this setting to see if you get error messages:

rt. click My Computer then click Properties then Advanced then Startup and Recovery Settings then unclick Automatically restart

Sorry I wasn't clear.
I have to take out the disk in order for it to quit restarting.
When this first started, the computer and monitor both were shutting down. Then I noticed just the monitor was shutting down every couple of times so I hooked a different monitor to it and it quit--until I started trying to use the cdrw, then the shutting down started down again. I wasn't using the cdrw when the monitor was shutting down.
I'll try changing that setting and see what happens. I'll let you know.
Thanks.

Found out a new thing. The only disks it does that to is operating systems disks. It did it to the Windows XP and a Windows 95 disks I have. It will start to install, then the computer will shut down, start to open Windows, then shut down. It will continue to do that until I take the disk out.

So you appear to be saying that only boot disks are failing?

Is everything else working OK?

One possibility around the boot issue is to create the 6 floppy setup disks which will setup the system in order to receive the XP CD.
Instructions and download here:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=310994

That would probably work if my floppy disk drive worked. It hasn't worked in about 2 years. It says every disk I put in there needs to be formated and when you try to do that it says it can't be formated. It won't even read a disk that has something on it.

Sorry; i forgot that you mentioned that at first.

I can find no precedent for a CDRW issue with only boot disks.

Just to clarify:

1. You are booting these disks & they fail?

2. Is your BIOS set to boot the CDRW before the hard drive?

3. What happens if you insert the XP CD while in windows? Does the disk start? Do you get the options screen?

have you tried rolling back the driver?

or maybe a system restore to when it all worked

sorry if this info is a load of rubbish

thanks loaf