Laptop not working

[Jen07091216]

I bought a laptop about a year and a half ago. What do ya know, after the warranty expires, my laptop wants to stop working. It shows the hp logo with the circle of dots spinning around, and then the screen goes blank. Was working fine one day, and the next wasn't working. And I have to pay to talk to an expert?... Ridiculous. How do I fix this dang thing on my own? 

[WAWood]

@Jen07091216 

You have to pay because the warranty expired.

The HP Logo is contained in the firmware of the motherboard so displaying it does not require using the hard drive extensively. But, if your PC boot process does not get beyond that, this could be an indication that the hard drive has died -- as it then would not be able to find or load the Windows boot files.

If your PC is new enough to support UEFI, you can use these steps to test the hard drive: http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c00439024

If not, to check the drive you have to follow these steps:
1) Press Esc key repeatedly, several times a second, while rebooting the laptop. Do NOT hold the key down, just press it over and over.
2) Eventually, you will see an HP Startup Menu.
3) press the Function key for testing the hard drive (usually F2) and let it run.

Please report back the test results.