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Jen,
The first thing I always recommend in this type of scenario is to remove every other piece of hardware other than the mouse and keyboard. That simplifies things tremendously. After doing so, then try and boot into Windows in normal mode. Windows will only load drivers as it needs them. If it works, add your hardware back one by one, rebooting at each turn, until you find the culprit.
One other thought - in safe mode, uninstall all 3rd party applications. Try rebooting into normal Windows mode. Reinstall them one by one, rebooting as appropriate to see what happens.
This could be other problems as well - disk space, virus. You really do need to start clearing space.
Viruses - can be very hard to find, but as a rule, you can check a few places in the registry where many of them like to hide by default.
It could also be a corruption with Windows, and a emergency repair reinstall would probably fix that as well. If you cannot get into safe mode, then you have some serious issues.
I always recommend having some memory sticks, they're dirt cheap these days and can help retrieve important data in safe mode. Typically, DVD/CD burners won't work in safe mode, that's the whole idea - it turns off all 3rd party drivers other than core Windows stuff.
If you were near, I'd have a look at it for you, but alas. Don't do anything drastic like formatting. In the hands of a beginner, you're more likely to screw something up and lose data. The same applies to the registry as well.
I've worked in the support industry for a good number of years now btw. I'm pretty much fluent in Windows, OS X and Linux, with some BSD (freeBSD, openBSD) & UNIX (Solaris 8 & 10) experience thrown in for good measure.
Dave
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