Please help!!

Good afternoon everyone. I am at my wits end trying to fix my wifes computer. She has a compaq C700 with and intel pentium dual core processor running the factory Windows Vista Home premium 32. I was online a few days ago and while looking at a few webpages, the comp went to a black screen and wouldnt budge. I ran and got the charger thinking it was conserving battery life. Hooked up the charger and still nothing. So, I let it sit for 2 hours and came back and nothing. So i had to shut her down and now when I go to turn the comp on I get to the black screen with the green loading bar and its just stays on that page for hours. The bar is moving but nothing else.

I can get into safe mode which is promising. I have ran norton, malwarebytes and every other spyware/virus program i have. They all find no viruses. I then did a start-up repair and it couldnt complete the task. So i went and did a system restore from a date in mid december 2011 and still nothing.

I have checked high/low for any type of CD's that might have come with the computer and she has nothing. I was just going to copy all her files/folders and transfer them to our PC and do a full system restore but i dont have the disks so I'm screwed.

Any advice/tips/fixes would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Kevin

P.s. I'm a firefighter, not a tech guru and i know the bare minimum about computers. Basically I know enough to get myself into trouble if you get my drift. So please take it easy on me when explaining anything. Imagine this is my first day of school and I have no comp background.

Hello, sounds as if the hard drive may be failing, see if you can make the Live CD and if able , pull any files or stuff considered important off and save now while able to , cause if the hard drive totally fails, then all will be lost . Read this and see if you can do it : Use Ubuntu Live CD to Backup Files from Your Dead Windows Computer - How-To Geek

After you save your stuff with Ubuntu, post back with make and model of your computer and we will do a factory restoration for you.
LOL I see now that you told us already, with Compaq
Depending on how old your computer is, the F10 gives you a menu for the recovery partition, look at your compaq screen and you will be able to see the right key for the " recovery console"

The only things that she values on her computer are the family pics. She also might have a few word documents she needs to save, other than that the rest can go. Will ubuntu save all her pics and documents? Is ubuntu overkill just for her valued items?
Thanks,
Kevin

That would be your call Kevin
If you have something of value use Ubuntu to save. If nothing to save, then go to next step.