Well the only thing I can suggest now is to go into safe mode, back up all your data, and run the recovery tool provided by HP.
are you sure you are in administrator? XP administrator is an account that actualyl says "administrator" because your account for example, "pepsiblue" is "administrator" privileges, in a computer like HP or watever, it doesn't necessarily mean you have access to everything. Very likely you have to log into "administrator" account which probably isn't passworded. basically in safemode, when you login, choose "other" and type in administrator. i hope this sounds right, someone else double check i havn't used XP in a while.
Turn off and unplug your PC then open up your tower and remove the video card from the mobo then boot up and see if things work out.
If the PC is using a stand-alone graphics card, HP will not use a motherboard with on-board graphics.
I don't know about that but if you're right then I suggest he turn off the PC, take out the video card and plug it into another PCI slot and that should work aswell if indeed the video card is the culprit. Edit: Also, when in safe mode the PC isn't utilizing the graphics card as far as I know so that leads me to believe his mobo does have onboard graphics. Or does it? I'm not too sure.
What I meant is that if he move the card to another slot then the graphics driver won't be able to detect the card. That'll eliminate any problem the graphics driver is causing and he'll be able to boot up just fine.
my head is like spinning from all this tech talk, again i'm not very bright with computers, so what everyone is suggesting right now is that i open up the computer and fiddle with the graphics card? which should look like any other microchip right?? or is it not even one......anyway in safe mode, i guess the graphics are disabled because the usual wallpaper is a black screen and video works but lags and there is no audio.......in case I have no other choice tho....how do i backup??? or is it even too late for that.....
ok so i've finally gotten around to opening up the computer but i actually don't even know what i''m looking at so alot of help that is lol. What exactly does a video card look like and where would it be located usually?? I'm gonna try the moving video card around method....no idea what i'm doing!!!!
