When you see the startup script, does it recognize the hard drive? Assuming the hard drive is OK and is not the cause of the problems with your laptop, try changing the CMOS settings to boot from CD before booting from the hard drive.

When you start the computer, it should tell you what button or buttons to press to enter the system BIOS. Once you open that, find the settings or advanced settings that list the boot order of the drives. Change the boot order to make the CD-ROM drive the first to boot, and then put in the windows disk (or the system recovery/startup disk, as they may fix or re-install windows as well). Save these changes and restart. The computer will boot from the disk in the CD-ROM drive first, enabling you to reinstall or repair your operating system.

Good Luck

MisterW