Dell Inspiron 1525 will not boot to Windows 7

[Microsoftie]

I have subjected my Dell Inspiron 1525 to very heavy use over the last few years. I have done extremely little in the way of hardware upkeep and ugrades, but I upgraded to Windows 7 in February of 2010 and have had Office 2007 on it for as long as I've had it. The computer uses a Pentium Dual Core Processor and has a 250 gb HDD and 2 gb of RAM.
Unfortunately, the computer has been experiencing issues for the last few weeks, and for the last three days, I have been completely unable to get the thing to boot in any way shape or form. I have all my important files backed up to flash drives or in the cloud, so replacing the HDD is honestly not out of the question.
I press the power button and it just spins and spins for hours, to nothing. Finally, it will ask if I want to boot into recovery mode and normal mode. Ive tried both no less than seven times, with nothing at all.
If it is a hardware issue (as I suspect it is), then i would rather not spend more than $150 on repairs because for $250 I could just get a used PC on eBay. Thanks!

 

[MyGodAL3X]

You could try to boot off a linux live cd to see if it is the hardware (other than your Hard Drive) and if it boots ok try putting a new hard drive in.
That's what I would start off with.

 

[MindoverMaster]

It might be a hardware issue. But I would do the above, run a Ubuntu Boot CD. (Off a CD) and see if you can access your Windows files. If so, it is not your computer, it just is your HDD or OS.

I would do a full reinstall of Windows 7. Start fresh, Be sure to back everything up.

Use GParted to wipe the drive. (guide in my sig)