[npetersen]

I have a Dell Inspiron 6000. It is a year old and out of warranty.

It will not boot. It let me boot it from the safe mode for a while but
Now that is not working. It starts up and gives the Windows screen
But it stays on that screen and the moving icon (showing it is
Responding) freezes.

I noticed lately it has been quite hot.

Help! I use my laptop for school to show Powerpoint presentations.
I am a teacher.

Thanks.

[Lowtax4eva]

It might just need a windows re-install, if this doesn't work it could be the hard drive is shot

[Curlyben]

First things first.
Get yourself some canned (compressed) air and blow all the dust out of the vents.
If you are lucky this is a sympton of over heating and the physical clean out may resolve this.

Next, if the clean out fails, rather than jumping straight in with a full reinstall a repair install may be in order:

Here's the official Micro$oft way of doing it,
And Here's one with screen shots.

Basically this installs windows over the top of your current setup.
So you don't loose any information you already have.

If you have no data to loose then cut your losses and go for the FULL version instead.
A clean install once in a while is good practice if nothing else.

[npetersen]

I tried re-installing Windows XP but it keeps returning to the start-up
Windows screen and freezing.:confused:

[HVAC888]

How far did you get during the re-install?

[npetersen]

How far did you get during the re-install?

I only got to the initial Windows screen.

I checked with Dell and they think it is my motherboard.
They put me through a series of tests.

Now, they want me to pay $350-450 to repair it and it is only
13 months old.

Ugh!

[HVAC888]

Have you tried the compressed air as Curlyben mentioned?

There should be an access door to the cooling fan, that you can open to clean out. Take a look for that.