Laptop Won't Start Properly

[ShelbyLu5]

Everything worked fine until when I turned it on one time it's just a black screen. Hold the power button to turn it back off and then try again, sometimes it comes on but it freezes instantly. Anybody have any ideas?

[WAWood]

@ShelbyLu5 

Freezing is almost always a drive issue -- as sectors fail and the drive gets hung up trying to read the same failed sectors over and over and over.

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 -- that will look similar to the image below

3) press the Function key for testing the hard drive (usually F2) and let it run.