Windows XP will not boot

[rigger321]

Hey all. i have a HP laptop. i left it on all of last night as i was downloading a film. when i looked at it this morning the screen was blank and the laptop would not respond.

i forced it to shut down by holding down the power button, but now the computer hangs during startup (when the windows logo appears and the blue line scrolls accross) and i have to force it to shutdown again.

i have tried starting the laptop in safe mode, but that also causes it to hang.

i then reset the bios to default settings, but to no avail.

i have checked that the HDD is okay using the self diagnostic in BIOS. the laptop didnt come with a proper XP CD just a recovery disc (but i cannot use this as the laptop wont boot up far enough to use it) i had a couple of bootleg copies of XP kicking around, so i put them in to try and boot off the CD but both of them are seem to have corrupted files, so they wont work either.

and i am now completely lost for ideas. so i turn to you guys. what action would you take next?

 

[IllogicallyLogical]

Have you tried "Last Known Good Configuration" from the "Advanced Startup" menu (the screen where you would choose to boot into Safe Mode)?

Joey
CCNA, MCP, A+, Network+, Wireless#

 

[rigger321]

Joey, yes. i have also tried all of the other configurations in there aswell (i think one said somthing about boot logging etc) but all either hang or make the laptop re-start.

thanks for your efforts tho. i was wondering wether i should get in touch with HP and see if its possible to get the XP recovery CD?

 

[wolluf]

I'm wondering if HD is really ok. Have you got a PC you could connect it to - to run chkdsk and drive manufacturer's diagnostic. The sort of symptoms you have sound like hard drive failure to me.