So here's the problem.  I was trying to bring my laptop out of hibernation, and it froze at the login screen, so I restarted by holding the power button.
when I tried to restart it, it gave me the "windows didn't shut down properly, do you want to start in safe mode"
I tried just starting it in regular mode, and it froze before it even got to the login screen.  I tried safe mode, and it froze right after the login screen.  
next I tried regular again, and it gives me the "loading" screen right before the login screen, then goes black, back to loading, etc... in an endless loop for a while, then restarts itself.
I have tried both numerous times, same thing happens every time

So i figured screw vista, I'll install linux.  I get to the find hardware step in Ubuntu, and it can't find most of my hardware (including the hard drive)  so I can't format the hard drive because it's "not there"

I tried the same thing with XP, again no hard drive

I can get DSL to boot from the live CD, but It wont find any of my hardware (including ethernet card)

any ideas?

it's an HP laptop, and for some reason they decided I didn't need the vista install CD.  I have a copy on my desktop HD, but no DVD burner right now... I should get it burned by the end of the week.  the problem is that home basic is installed on the computer and my version is the business version,  I'd like to upgrade, but I dont know if it will work with the current version scewed up.  if it can't find the hard drive, how do I reformat it to install a clean copy?

Ultimately I'd like to have it dual boot vista and ubuntu.


ETA:
almost forgot:
Twice it's gone to a window similar to the safe mode window asking if I want to run a windows diagnostic tool, it does it's thing then asks me if I want to reverto to a previos setting when windows worked.  This still doesn't do any good, still hangs up in the same places.

ETAA: It's also given me the blue screen of death a few times at the same place it hangs up

Perhaps your hard drive driver is corrupt.

I had a problem installing vista on my sony notebook.  Vista wouldn't recognize my hard drive.  It took about 36 hours for me to figure out that it was the driver vista was trying to use for my hard drive didn't work.  I used a different computer to downlaod the xp driver from the manufacturers web site.  Then I put the driver on an sd card and rebooted my install.  It worked.  I'm not sure how.  I think when you have a bad driver, vista starts to automatically search for a better one.  When it found the driver on the sd card, it used it.

I don't know for sure.  But I would try it.  The endless loop and blue screen have always been driver related for me in the past.  

BTW any vista disk will work.  Every vista disk has every vista version.

Good luck.

Nope the drive is not dead or gone, it is probably because the laptop has the new ata type connector and the driver for this kind needs to be installed as part of the windows setup (F6 to install driver). There is some setting you can change in the bios to get around this but I am having a brain freeze at the moment. I just did this two weeks ago.

okay, so I went looking for the driver, and Hitachi's website says that windows comes with it, but they don't have any place to download it separately
I don't know how well I trust third party sites for drivers

www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/drivers.htm

ETA:
F6 doesn't seem to do anything.
the bios is pretty damn limited, there's the boot order, and some basic info about the processor and that's about it.

I couldn't find a driver on hitachi's site either.  Did you check HP's site

the link for their driver page is HERE

I didn't know you comp info, but this might help.

I'm a little skeptic of this driver theory...
here's why:  the driver would most likely be on the XP install CD, and maybe even the Ubuntu install CD.  It should have found it if it was missing.  second:  I was able to log into vista in safe mode, it accepted my password, and rejected an incorrect password.  I doubt it would be able to do that without the HD.

I'm going to get an install CD for vista tomorrow, we'll see if that method works

that new of a system,  you should be calling tech support and getting it fixed.  Alot of times if you call within the first couple months of warranty they will ship you overnight.  the  recovery cds  

Out of the box, no current Windows version, including Windows Server 2003, supports SATA drives. However, just as you can add a SCSI controller to Windows, you just need to add the correct SATA driver that ships with the motherboard or SATA host adapter. After you've installed the driver, Windows will be able to see the SATA controller and any attached devices. For more information about SATA, visit the SATA Working Group Web site at

SerialSata

some search results on installing xp on sata drives

Google results

This was the link I used to get some info from HP on the issue.

HP Info

UPDATE

well for anyone who cares, it turned out to be a hardware problem.  I think there is something wrong with the MB, so it's going back to HP.