HP laptop won't boot on Windows 7

So I've got this old HP ProBook 4730s running Windows 7, using that basic Microsoft Essentials antivirus. Today, the thing flagged some threats, wiped them out, and asked me to run a full scan. Well, halfway through the scan, my battery completely died and the laptop just shut off. Now, when I plug it back in and try to boot, it won't even give me the option to "start Windows normally." It just flashes the HP logo, hits a black screen with that tiny blinking cursor in the corner, and then loops right back to the HP logo. It’s stuck in this endless loop. I checked the BIOS and ran a startup test—everything looks fine there—but when it gets to the hard drive check, it hits 10% and just stalls. I don't really know what I'm doing, so I'm being super specific here. Is my Windows installation just trashed, or did my hard drive actually die on me? I've got about 50 GB of photos on there that I am NOT losing.

Can you try booting up in Safe Mode? Basically, when you're turning the laptop on, just tap the F8 key really quickly—then you should see an option to select Safe Mode...

I can't. I already tried. It looks like I won't be able to do anything until Windows actually starts up, but mine won't even boot.

Can you get into the BIOS by tapping F2 or the Delete key on your keyboard? If so, you might be able to boot into Safe Mode too. If that doesn't work, my advice would be to grab a Linux Mint live USB—or even burn it to a blank CD if you still have one handy—boot from that, and then just browse through your files to move them onto an external hard drive. Once your data is safe, you can wipe the drive and do a clean install of Windows... It sounds like the system took a bit of a hit when the laptop shut down while the antivirus was mid-scan. Or, if you have a Windows 7 disc lying around, you could try running a startup repair—that might do the trick...

I’m trying to jump into the BIOS because this HP screen keeps telling me to hit Esc to get there. I tried mashing F8, but nothing happened. Then the damn thing just died on me because the battery gave out. Thanks for the tip though—I'll give this a shot.