slight technical failure

My computer is having an bad day.
A problem i thought was gone for good has returned, and this time it's worse. It gets two thirds the way through booting up and then stops and restarts without warning. A blue screen with some text appears briefly (literally for 1/10 of a second) and it begins the process again. I recall a blue screen with info on weeks ago when it first happened; and something about hardware. The previous way of fixing it was simply to turn off and back on again. That hasn't worked so far today. But it does work in safe mode. But it feels cramped and uncomfortable having icons double their normal size along side everything else being double the size.

Surfing the web is like watching tv through a letterbox.

I may do system recovery later. I've never done anything like that before. It doesn't wipe everything off the HD does it? That would be a bit drastic. I'm backing up anyway just incase the need arises for drastic action of any kind.
The good thing about having a month old computer is that backing up doesn't take too long.