Win XP Pro won't start

[trinamick]

I am attempting to fix a friend's Gateway running Win XP Pro. When it attempted to boot up, she got the BSOD, and the computer rebooted to the black screen offering the safe mode options. However, no matter which option I try, it just reboots once again to the black screen. I have tried using F12 to change it so it will boot to the XP CD, but to no avail. Any suggestions?

 

[rf6647]

Here is a bump, if needed. What was the key to booting from CD? Bios did not hold the change? Drive or media defective?

 

[trinamick]

It gave a message about defective media. It appeared to be beyond my skill set, so she had to call a tech who actually gets paid. He said something about the hard drive being frakked, though. He hasn't brought it back yet, so I haven't gotten any details.

 

[raybay]

Sounds like the solution is up to the skill of the technician. Nothing we can do here until it is returned... but at this point, the problem could be just about anything... bad hard drive boot sectors, bad video graphics card, bad memory, bad cpu fan, bad power supply....