Pae, I'd probably agree, although there's always the possibility that there's something worse.

Ismenia, if you don't have an XP CD around, or you don't feel like playing around with it yourself, I'm sure any local geek worth his silicon will have one. If it's freezing on that black screen, you're going to need something else to boot. (It could still be very simple to fix, but it's going to be more complicated to diagnose, especially remotely.) Onto the local geek!

Everyone needs a local geek. If you can't find one any other way, just go to any gathering and ask if Chris is around. For some reason that I do not fathom, a LOT of geeks are named Chris, and a lot of Chrises are geeks. I wonder if you could sort out your problems by going to a crowded shopping center and snagging their PA system to say "Chris, can you come to Shop 42B? We have a problem with a computer." Geeks tend to be curious creatures, so it might well work.....