Blank screen on startup

[Ruby]

Hi. I just got a newly updated harddrive that contains a
basic version of XP on it. Last night I finally set it up,
and got my modem connected to it, downloaded some of my
old programs, etc. Everything was going fine- every time I
rebooted, it worked, and all the programs ran smoothly. I
shut it down for the night, and now when I turn it on,
after the initial loading screen (where it shows the
microsoft xp logo with the little blue bars running across
the page) I get nothing. I get a blank, black screen and
my cursor. I let it sit there like that for an hour, and I
got the inactive screen. When I finally moved my mouse, it
went away and the 'loading' blue screen was present, but
it never loaded.
What can I do to make my pc work again? Anyone?
I'd be so grateful if someone helped me- the pc is a
birthday present for my cousin.

 

[Harry Ohrn]

Restart the computer and repeatedly press the F8 key. You should get to a
black menu screen. Use the arrow keys to highlight Last Known Good
Configuration and press Enter. Hopefully this will boot you to the Desktop.
If that doesn't work then try the same route and select Safe Mode. When you
get to the Logon screen select the "Administrator account" and leave the
password blank (don't enter anything) and click to log on. Then go to
Start->Help and Support->Pick a task section and click System Restore.
Follow the wizard to roll back.

BTW I trust you know how to shutdown and restart correctly. I'm asking
because improper shutdowns can wreak havoc on XP.