Hard Drive dead?
 

Symptoms:

-Press power button : (use XP)
-Goes to screen where "Xp crashed, select the options below - Safe mode, start windows normally"
-Crashes once it hits the XP title page screen.

Windows never loads up.

I get to bios > Options screen where "windows crashed, please select the follow - Safe mode start / Start windows normally"

HD dead? or another possiblity?

Either dying hard drive or corrupted O/S usually corrupted o/s causes bsod.

yah there was a BSOD.

So should i try and replace the O/S first?

If i external it, could i save my files?

yes save your files first anyways since it might be bad HDD. Then you also are guarantee a backup of your system then reload O/S.. Hell even load Windows 7

Try running the repair mode on an xp disk and running a chk dsk