harddrive fails to boot after shutdown

ezminer,
Check that blue screen that comes up and make a note of the error code, like 0x00000ec or similar,
this will help in the troubleshooting process.
Have you tried entering your system in safemode?
If not, press F8 during bootsequence to see if you are able to enter failsafe mode.
If this works it is probably some drivers causing this problem or as rindi mentioned above, this might be
a virus that found it's way in to your system.
Check with programs as AdAware as well to see if your registry settings contains something nasty in the run key.
Another idea is to go to http://www.hijackthis.de and download, then run this program, paste the log file in to their site and see which results go get.
If you do get indications of "nasty" files, the safest bet is to remove these.
Let us know how this goes,
/B

system crashed again this morning on reboot , followed nobus's direction on turning of system restart option and was able to read the blue sceen.  Screen said error caused by pqv21.sys file page fault in non page fault area. that file I believe is a norton image file I think. Most likely the last image file I restored from.
Pqv21.sys-address f9a78444 base at f9a6f000 date stamp 4108c452

I tried to run a Ghost restore like I normally due but all the image files said that they were unable to load. file not found error.

boot.ini file reports currupted disk size incompatible I believe it said.

I was able to save some of my files off the disk with Norton and also with my Bart's PE builder disk I have access to the disk. Anybody got any ideas how I can get the disk to boot without having to reformat and start over?

Can this help you :

http://www.symantec.com/techsupp/primus/id4974.html

You know it sounds like some sectors on your HDD have become corrupt.

Try to run a check utility from the HDD makers website.

Could you give some more info on your system? what power supply, numder and models of drives and devices and such.

I took the advice from Nobus and reset my configuration settings to be able to see the blue screen error message before the disk totally tanked.  The error message "error caused by pqv21.sys file page fault in non page fault area. " gave me what I needed to track down this type of error in the Microsoft knowledge base. I used my laptop to research on the net while this computer was disabled. I did a google search and found this old Experts link http://www.experts-exchange.com/Hardware/Desktops/Q_21006957.html which lead me to this link http://aumha.org/win5/kbestop.htm
I discovered that pqv21.sys was a driver resideing in the system 32 file.  I used my Bart's P.E. boot disk to boot and then used the file explorer utility in that disk to navigate to system 32 and find that driver and delete it. (for those of you who are curious about what a Barts P.E. disk is (http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/)
After I deleted the driver the harddrive booted normally. I uninstalled Norton and have since bought a new larger harddrive and have recovered everything off the old drive and installed it on the new one.  I will shortly format the old drive and use it as a secondary.
I will award the points to Nobus whom I think gave me the most useful advice to help me solve this problem.  Thanks to all who partcipated.