Friend’s Toshiba notebook will not boot

My husband’s partner asked me to look at his laptop to see what was wrong with it. His story was that it boots but then shuts off. When I got it though it won’t boot. The BIOS is showing the hard drive. I can also hear it spinning for about 45 secs to a minute but then it spins down and goes to a blank screen. No attempt to load Windows (XP). I’ve tried getting it to safe mode and last known config but it doesn’t work. I just mess with computers on the side (I’m a student)and can usually figure most problems out however I need a little help with this. If you need any more info let me know and I’ll tell you what I can. Thanks a lot.