Windows not starting - overheat problem?

So one of my classmate's laptop, a Compaq Presario, isn't booting into Windows. The BIOS screen shows up fine, and the Vista scrollbar begins, but after the login background shows up, the cursor keeps waiting, and then the screen goes black. The indicator lights still show activity, but that's it.

She said it overheated right before this, and then wouldn't boot. So I'm assuming it's something hardware related, but I was wondering...could it be that Windows won't load because some hardware is damaged and it can't work with the drivers?

The display looks fine, by the way. So my plan was to run diagnostics on the memory and HD, and try booting a Linux LiveCD to see if that all works fine. I suppose I could try repairing the installation, but why would it be a software problem if caused by overheating?

Any ideas?

TIA
-pixelot

 

It could be anything from a physical fault in the circuitry causing a short, to something like bad sectors on the hard drive that have now corrupted the system files.

Try it with a LiveCD to see if it'll boot that. If it won't boot that, then it's almost certainly a physical fault in the system itself. That might be a memory module that's come loose due to the overheating - which could be fixed by reseating the module, or it could be the aforementioned short-circuit, in which case the system's toast.

 

Have you tried it in safe-mode to see if it's just a driver problem?

On startup press F8 until you get a boot screen with the option of safe-mode.

 

Thanks for reminding me, I'll try that tomorrow.

 

@pixelot ur plan seems good , go for it , and try the safe-mode also as XGX suggested