I'm putting my money on your mother board, chances are your running an on-board GPU and something somewhere has goosed it.

ok, the way you describe the fault sounds like a hardware problem and not software.
the hint here is where you got windows to start installing and then got a crash.
this to me sounds like hardware not software.
my advice would be first open the case but do not remove anything, power up and see if all the fans are turning.
one on cpu one on graphics card and dont forget the power supply fan (s).
if there is a fan which is not turning switch off immeidately.
then replace fan which is at fault, if it is in power supply ,then this will need replacing as it is easier than atempting to fit a new fan.
if all fans are turning then i would next check the ram.
hope this helps .
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we are mere drops in the ocean of life

Evie has long gone and prob has a new PC by now....

Do you get anything on the monitor when you boot up? If you see nothing - not even white writing on a black background then it is most likely (not in order):
1) Your graphics card, or worse your on-board graphics chip.
2) A motherboard failure
3) The internal power supply.

If you can hear the hard drive spinning then you can eliminate 3 from above.

If you can see some writing on boot up then you can get into your bios. Try pressing the delete key just as the computer boots; this is the most common key to enter bios- failing that try the escape key.

If your floppy is not set as a boot device your computer will not boot from it.

Hope this helps.

Or the f2 key to enter the bios dependent in the bios manufacturer

u could also try clearing the bios settings by clearing the cmos on the motherboard as a fresh windows install might not support the settings in the bios until drivers are installed after windows intial install.
PLEASE REFER TO THE MOTHERBOARD MANUAL BEFORE YOU TRY THIS!