Fixing friend's laptop (need help)

Do him a favor and break the laptop, then give him a nice ol' desktop instead :)

scrap everything and put linux on it, he';ll thank you later

try to upgrade the windows 7 version to sp 1
take the laptop apart clean the fans apply new termal paste
put it back togheter and try again.

i had a mack book g4 and it was doing the same thing, 5 tries after i tried to open the comp get some blue smoke, he might be death in few day srry for his death D:

You have a dead hard disk, you'll need to buy a new, compatible one.
A PC shop can take care of everything (buying a new HDD, installing it & the OS, etc...) for a fee.

Disconnect (if necessary), turn off, and turn the thing upside down. Remove memory and HDD. Put them back in, making sure to plug them well. Turn it on again and whether it works or not be sure to tell your friend to use a cooling pad from now on. All noteboks and netbooks and crap are doomed to an untimely heat-death unless you use something like that.