My Emachine E740 starts up normally showing the windows logo but then flashes up a blue screen,after which it then shows me a black screen asking if I would like to open windows normally or open windows with the last known configuration that worked.
If I use the discs which came with my PC it gives me the option of starting windows by prompting but then goes so far and tells me that it is checking the system and does not move from that screen, is there any way to retrieve the files and just fit a new hard drive>

Regards Bryan

First its not a good idea to piggyback your question on someone else's. This can lead to confusion. You should start a new thread. So I've moved your question to its own thread.

To answer your question I would try using the repair option by booting to your CD. If that doesn't work, you can try replacing the drive and cloning your old drive.

Try booting into safe mode by tapping F8 on startup and the try to use system restore to go back to when your system was not having these problems

Start, programs, accessories, system tools, system restore
Pick a date earlier in time when things were working