winXP power up to a black screen?

[yarion]

I have a HP Pavilion laptop 4900 with windows XP that I'm trying to repair for a friend. :knock:

Problem: Turn on laptop and the HP logo comes up, afterwards the screen becomes black and remains so. This happened right after the user tried to install Verizon Online software from a CD. ???

Solution:? So far, I've tried reformatting the HD from the OS disc (with my friends permission of course. I deleted the partition and created a new one in its place. Then when I attempted to format that partition, it processes very slowly (after 24hours it was only at 22%). I know this isn't at all right. Something is very wrong.

Could the Hard drive be bad? Video card? I realize at this point, the information on the harddrive is gone. What should I do next? Any help is appreciated. Thank you

 

[EvolZx6R]

Black Screen Here

I also reach the Black screen. Only mine says no OS found.

I have an old Sony Vaio Notebook PCG-R505TL . Both cd-rom and floppy are external. I reformmated the Hard drive and reinstalled Windows Xp on my desktop and reinstalled the Hard Drive in my laptop. Windows wont boot up on the Vaio. When I power up I get a No Operating System message. I heard the reason Windows isnt booting up is because of the difference in BIOS between my desktop and laptop. The bios on the laptop doesnt give me the option to boot from anything that connects via usb. The laptop recognizes the drive is installed.

My question is how do I reformat the Vaio and reinstall Windows while the hard drive is in my laptop without an internal Cd drive?