Faulty Windows XP Installation

Hardware problem. What kind of video card? Have you tried to make sure your hardware is seated properly in the computer?

Video card might have a problem.. PCI or AGP?

I don't think it is the video card. Basically, the computer used to have XP on it prior to me reformatting it. I reformatted it because it would freaze up on the xp loading screen when starting up. The computer would then only work when booting up in safe mode. I then did a quick ntfs reformat to the drive and installed xp. During installation, the monitor just goes black, the cdrom drive stops spinning and no activity is seen on the front LED's. I am wondering if it is a hardware issue or if i reformat through msdos (C:\format C  it might take care of it providing its a hd or software issue. Im confused  

It has all the signs of hardware. In this case it could be a fauly power supply. After what you just wrote, I'm guessing a power supply.

Only that would cause the cd-rom to stop spinning, video to go blank, etc.

Which might also cause a lock up when loading into Windows. It's also possible something is over heating though.

If you can switch out the power supply (PSU) that might help. Or try opening the case and try keeping it cool - blow a fan on the whole computer with the side open, to see if it lasts longer. If it does, something is over heating. If it doesn't, it might be a power supply problem.

It sounds like the computer is probably 2-3 years old, which most power supplies under regular use will go 5-7 years, but 3 years is a good low average lifetime.

I have another question concerning a windows XP install but on a different computer. The computer is roughly 5 years old and is about to kick the can (if it hasn't already). Anyways, it has a AMD k6 1000+, crappy mobo, nvidia 4400ti, stock hdd, cd burner, dvd player, and fdd. One day it decided that it didn't want to load windows xp so i decided it was time to reformat for about the 15th time on the hdd's life. After doing so, I tried reinstalling windows and when it did the scan for all drivers and devices in bios then goes to restart, herein lies my problem. When it reboots back up to go into the 16bit windows xp installation screen, it hangs while loading up xp with the little green/blue loading bar. It does this forever. I decided to go into safe mode instead and it hangs on loading the last device/driver i think its xxxx.gpu or something. I pretty much had it with this computer, however I am just curious if the hdd is finally dead. If this is the case I can snatch up another one real cheap and give this computer to my little sister. If not then it will end up in the trash. Any suggestions?

Well, GPU is standard acronym for Graphic Processing Unit.. so that's a video card issue. You might be able to change something in BIOS to get by that.. reset ESCD, change from PCI to AGP in Bios for first display device.
Restore to fail-safe defaults.

Or if it has onboard video, use that to get windows loaded, then put the video card back in.