[fasurp]

OK, so I have a dual boot WinXP and Ubuntu. I had Ubuntu up today with no problems. I restarted and booted up XP, and it got to the screen as normal, however when I went to click start I got a BSOD that said something about trying to restart in safe mode, and at the bottom it said it was dumping some sort of memory, can't remember exactly. Now, when I go to start it, it gets to the initial screen and I can get into BIOS, but it goes no farther. If I let it go without entering BIOS, it beeps a few times over a minute or so and goes to a black screen with a message that says to reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device and press a key. When I enter BIOS, it does not have any boot devices installed, and will not see them at all. I've tried setting BIOS to default settings, turning everything off and reseating the IDE cable. I can feel the HDD spinning when I start it, but that's it. Could it be the backup battery? I've had the computer for a few years now, how long are those things supposed to last? I haven't done anything weird with windows lately, haven't installed and programs, don't do torrents or download anything. Any ideas????????