The most common failure of a laptop is due to the hard-disk. Generally a hard-disk (hard-drive) can only sustain shocks of upto 10Gs worth. This means the most common death is caused by.... a un-cushoned drop from 30cm of higher.
My prognosis is that the platters and/or heads of the hard-disk are damaged.
Unfortunatly if you get it working again by reloading the O/S it won't be long untill it fails again, when damage like this occures it's like cancer, it just gets worse.
The only solution is to have a transplant.... replace the hard-disk.
After this has been replaced, enter the bios, detect the new drive, select it to boot from cd/dvd and reload the O/S.
Luckily laptop hard-drives have fallen considerably in price over the last few years. I personally recommend that you obtain a replacement with no less the 5400rpm and more cache the better... I would go into details on why but all I'll say is it's due to bottlenecks/lag.
If the laptop was under warrenty the majority will say that it's now void due to the drop, so don't have hopes of a free replacement/repair, however it's always worth a try.
If they are going to charge you I advise doing it yourself or taking it to a local computer dealer for it will normally be cheaper.
DIY price - £30 to £100 depending on the type of hard-disk you get.... I recommend something around the £45 area (if you see lots of pins on the hard drive interface you need a IDE hard-drive, if you see a thinish plastic strip with metal contacts then you need a SATA style, the size of the replacement needs to be 2.5").
Local dealer - expect to pay upto 40% on the replacement hard-disk and an hour labour... DO NOT pay more than this for labour, most of the reload is unattended and so if they put down more than hour then they are cow-boys.
Manufactorer - expect the longest wait for repair and for it to be returned to you as if it was turned on again for the first time. Chances are the total payable will be over £200 but you will recieve a manufactors warrenty and guarentee on the work.
If you know someone who knows a bit about computers then option 1 is you.
If your still unsure just reply here.
Now bak to my forest migration from 2000 to 2003 
