Laptop won't let me log in

I posted this in Malware but it was suggest I post here first.
Both my home desktop and my work laptop got a browser hijacker in May. With the help of some nice folks at bleepingcomputer.com I got ride of (mostly) the problems with the desktop.
I left the laptop with our IT guy at work and he did mostly nothing for 5 weeks. I picked it up Thursday and found a Winsock disk in the CD drive. But it still didn't work. So Saturday tried again. Thing won't even log onto the internet. Checked all the settings seemed OK (had same problem with the desktop when I first tried to get rid of the hijacker) So I was going to try the same steps as the desktop. I had some important files on the laptop that I copied to a thumb drive.
That copy was taking a long time so I left the computer for a few minutes and the screen was blank. No big deal the screen saver is on right. Wrong. It wouldn't wake up. So I had to reboot. Now I can't log in. I get to the XP screen to log in and the left side tells me to log in but the two names I have to log in with are gone. Just a blank right side. WTF? I tried several different safe mode starts and the same thing. Can't login. I have a XP sp2 program disk which I tried to run but as it was trying to load I get a message " check for viruses remove any installed check Hd controller. check HD, run chksk/f to check for HD corruption." Fine but I can't get to the C:\ prompt (or don't remember how) So I am Stuck. I tried to call out IT guy and, as usual, doesn't return phone calls. I have to leave on a business trip early Wed AM and it would be a good thing to take this laptop with me but not if its just a paperweight.