PC won't boot

I have a Dell Inspiron 8100 running Windows XP. Today, it won't boot up. After pressing the start button the Dell Inspiron screen comes up. None of the F keys work while that screen is up. Then a black screen appears with a blinking curser in the upper left corner. The computer won't respond to anything. The power light and the drive access lights are on solid. I've tried booting up with a recovery disk and with the Windows XP installation disk. These don't work. I tried resetting the hard drive. That had no effect either. I'd appreciate any ideas anyone has.

 

two things:
1. video card and or driver
2. ram

either of those will give symptoms like you describe.

 

Thanks for the leads. How do I go about fixing either of these two potential problem sources?