Gateway Laptop won't boot up any longer

My son had his PC on during the night of April 25. When he woke up the following morning, the 26th, his PC was off. Attempts to restart were futile. Starting, the Dell logo comes on and the screen goes to the safe mode screen start, prompts for one of several startups, i.e., Safe Mode, etc.,,Use last known good configuration, etc. Attempts at using any of these choices has the same affect, WindowsXP logo screen and then a blank, black screen.

Bottom line is that not only does the computer not start, I can't even get into safe mode to debug. Now what choices do I have. Someone told me that it might have been hit with the Chernoble virus April 26th Date significance). Don't know, but is there a fix and if so how do I go about it without having access to the Safe Mode???? Help!

I tried using the reinstallation disk that came with the PC, but it won't boot even with this disk. Anyone have a similar problem??

 

Please keep in one thread. Answer is over in the Software thread.