Points to the hard drive. I had exactly the same problem a few weeks back, as it happened it was a backup drive I have in the machine causing the issues, mine did exactly the same stuck on the XP screen.
The problem is the recovery partition on newer machines is on the HD so if it fails then youve had it basically.
Do you know anyone with a windows XP cd rom you can borrow, as long as the machine has an XP licence sticker on it with a key then you are fine, it just means serching round for the drivers for it but it can be recovered.
EDIT sorry didnt see the no cd rom drive bit.
Last edited by simountain1; 18th February 2010 at 23:59.
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