Help, Acer Aspire 3000 Alt +F10 disaster!

My Aspire 3000 was full and was in need to clearing out, I had a look through some sites and discovered the Alt F10 recovery thing which sounded ideal to let me wipe the laptop and start from scratch. I started the machine, held Alt and kept pressing F10, the laptop then switched itself off and now when I switch it on the DVD rom drive whirs a bit and one of the lights on the front slowly flashes constantly but the screen remains blank and no Bios info appears, the HDD light does not flicker and it just sits like that and does nothing. I've tried starting with the battery removed, holding Ctrl, the Alt F10 thing but it won't do anything. I don't care about the contents of the drive, I just want to be able to re-install XP.

Any ideas?

Thanks

 

Update - I've also removed the hard drive and memory and tried to start it up but still nothing but the flashing light on the front panel.

 

Based on what you are describing it sounds like your mainboard(motherboard) has died.

If it is out of warranty then your best option would be to buy a new notebook.