OS wont boot from hard drive

Okay, so the other day my computer crashed, i went to restart. I got the compaq logo screen, then after that all i got was a black screen with a blinking underscore. My first thought was to attempt to run it in safe mode, no matter how many times i tryed i wasnt able to pull up the advanced boot options screen. All i can pull up is BIOS and the diagnostic tests (which came up with nothing). I am able to boot ubuntu from a zip drive and acess my files. I also swapped out my hard drive with another one i have, the other one works and when i swapped the one i have been using with the other laptop the same thing happened. SO, any suggestions on how i might be able to fix this?

OS: vista
compaq presario CQ60

i cant remember the specs off the top of my head.

I would attempt to fix the Master Boot Record:

1. Insert a Windows Vista installation disc.

2. Choose the language, time, currency, etc and click Next. Now click on Repair Your Computer.

3. Choose the operating system to repair and click Next. When the System Recovery Options dialog comes up, choose the Command Prompt.

4. Now type bootrec.exe and press Enter. This will rebuild the boot configuration data and hopefully fix your problem. You can also run the command with switches to fix just the master boot record (/fixmbr), the boot sector (/fixboot), or rebuild the entire BCD (/rebuildbcd).