Computer not booting up, help please

This is a 4 year old computer, I'm thinking it might be hard drive failure, and this is help for a friend.

It gets up to the sign-on screen, and from there all it shows is clouds. There's no box to put in the username / password though

I believe the O.S. is Xp Home

Should I try booting in safe mode? Might go over there to take a look at it, some ideas would be appreciated, thanks

 

i would definitely try safe mode first

 

Yes, safe mode and then ask
"What did you do between the time it worked and the time it did not work?"

Did it crash, have something new installed?

 

hi what about trying this http://www.majorgeeks.com/download240.html
or this onehttp: //www.majorgeeks.com/download677.html they may help u