More info. I can access the DOS prompt (via recovery console) and I ran chkdsk /r. Of course this took a long time but results were that the disk is OK. However, still get the same BSOD.
Is there some other repair function I can use from the DOS prompt? If not, I guess the next thing is clean reinstall. The laptop that I have the problem is an old one (2004) with an Intel 1.4GHZ, 1MB processor and only 586 mem. It had WinXP Pro installed and still get the splash screen for XP but then the error message.