Aspire won't do anything

My Aspire 5000 won't boot up. It tries and it gets as far as to give me the option to press F2 for the startup menu and if I do press F2, it will go into the setup menu but when I exit, it shuts down and when it comes back on, it goes to a blank black screen with a cursor showing and that is all it does. It sounds like it is trying to do something but it doesn't do anything. If you press any of the keys, it beeps. I seem to only be able to get as far as seeing the Acer screen, then it goes to the black screen.

 

Sounds like a dead hard drive. When you enter into the BIOS (by pressing F2) do you see your hard drive listed? The first page is usually the "Information" tab so the hard drive should be listed there. If it's not you have either bad hard driver or bad connector..

 

It's listed..model name and number

 

So can it get past the BIOS? If it does, then the problem probably lies with Windows.

 

I am guessing that it gets past the BIOS but it won't go anywhere after that. It sounds like it's trying really hard to do something but can't. It's just a black screen with the cursor at the top.

 

Well, you can get Ultimate BootCD and check your hdd with one of the diagnostic programs. The CD is bootable so you have to change the boot order from the BIOS or, by pressing F12(make sure this option is enabled in the BIOS) and choose your CD-ROM.
If it's a Windows problem you would've seen some erros - BSOD or missing files or whatever. But you said you see black screen with blinking cursor. I'd test the HDD.

 

I created a CD; changed the option to start with the CD drive. CD drive works, I can hear it but nothing happens. I still end up with the black screen with the cursor.