Resolved boot ends in shutdown

Hello,

I'm helping a friend (not the same one as the Win XP post I just made) who updated her laptop last night with October's patches.

When she shut down her laptop, she got the semi-standard screen that says something like "Windows is updating your computer. Do not shut down."

She left it be, and the laptop hung on update 5 of 12. She left it all night, and it was still on 5 of 12 this morning.

She did a hard shutdown, and now when she tries to boot, she briefly gets a power light, and then the laptop shuts down.

She cannot get into safe mode with the F8 key.

What can she do?

 

Thanks for your response, Arie. She phoned Dell Friday night, and lo & behold, the computer booted up while she was on the phone. I passed along your instructions, should the problem recur.