Major help needed.... Kernel Panic

I was running Fedora Core 2 just fine when I did a restart and it hung up on Kernel Panic. Tried another restart and the same thing occurred. Lines of code scroll and then it just stops saying something about Kernel Panic. I've heard Kernel Panic mentioned only once or twice but don't know much about it.

I tried to reinstall Fedora Core, booting from CD rom. I get to the point where it says to do a new system install and press enter. It gets to the line something /vm/bootloader and then hangs for a few... and then I get the message Kernel Panic again.

I'm not sure why I can't even get a new version of the OS to run on the system.... No one in my poky little town knows anything (ie, I can't take it to the computer shops) and the one guy who does thinks it is probably a hardware issue but isn't sure how to get a diagnostic done.

So would it be a hardware issue? Or how can I solve Kernel Panic? It hangs on booting so it's not like I can really seem to do anything.

And I was a dumbass so I didn't make a rescue disk... though at this point I'm not even sure if that would help my poor little system.

Can anyone help a cash-strapped girl with a last ditch effort with my tower before it seems like I'll have to throw in the towel and save up to get a stupid, yet cheap, Dell.

Thanks