Vista hangs on startup with blinking cursor

[Guest]

Hi,
My computer was working fine and then froze on me so I did a hard restart.
Afterwards all I get is a blinking cursor in the upper left when I try to
boot. I tried hitting F8 to get to safe mode but when I hit F8 it prompts me
for which device I want to boot from and when I select my HD with windows on
it the cursor comes and I never get to the safe mode screen.

I tried booting from the CD and it says that windows is loading files but
after it gets done with that it just hangs on the loading screen with the
green bar going across. I can never get to the menu.

That hd light on the computer is blinking steady if that means anything.

Can anyone offer any suggestions as to what might be wrong? I don't remember
installing anything or even doing any updates. I just browsed the web,
watched some videos, and then took a break and when I came back my computer
was frozen. Pressed the power button, and now this.

Thanks!
-Dan

 

[Guest]

If it is under Warranty, get them to check the hardware out.

 

[Guest]

Is there any way I can run those tests myself without booting into windows? I
just got a new HD a couple months ago when the old one went bad and I find it
hard to believe that this one died too.