hdd fail?

i just purchased an emachines from an online vendor. when i 1st hooked it up i got this wierd split screen at desktop. so i hooked it up to a friends monitor and now after the "loading win xp" screen i get nothing but black. i have checked bios, boot sequence, power management, hdd settings,etc. i have reinstalled twice from the disk that came with it. it is an emachines T2085 w/256ddr,1.6cpu,80g hdd. could it have a virus? this was a refurbed model. could the 1st moniter i used have caused this(however unlikely?)
thanx in advance

 

Check all of your cable connections, power connections, memory seating and video card seating unless its onboard - make sure everything is properly seated. If you changed anything in the bios, go back to setup defaults. A lot of times, things can wiggle loose during shipping and you might have compounded this when you connected your monitor.