After a search on that model, it seems there was a recall on them to replace the motherboard, but it's not clear what the issue was. People are also claiming HP has since pulled the recall page.

I haven't been able to find anything through HP on this, so either they're right that HP pulled the page, or there never was really a recall. Who knows.That wouldn't surprise me if there was, I'll have to look into it.  I never did research on recalls, just that issue.  Thanks again for all your help!I've found several pages linking to this document which no longer exists:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&docname=c01087277

It was supposedly the recall notice for the dv9000 series and has since been deleted.Yeah it looks like that was an overheating and/or hinge problem.  Many complain of hinges broken, and some are talking about their wireless quitting, which is an overheating issue I guess.  MAKES sense, this thing does seem to run the fan quite a bit.  The temps so far have been OK, but it may be a mobo issue, and this issue could be related to the overheating issue.  Thanks again!  Thank you for your response. You persistence and research are admirable. I wound have quit long ago.
The idea that it was a 'lemon' and had to be recalled makes sense. They could recall an item for some reasons without explaining all the reasons.
Well, I'd like to thank everyone again for their help.  I'll just continue to keep a Vista disk in it, and use it while we still can.  The only costs at this point are the hard drive, which I can take out and use in ANOTHER machine later if this one dies. 

I have an HP that was purchased new, it was a year old in September.  Around December, the LCD started flashing/flickering, then  about 2 weeks later, just quit. I replaced the LCD Inverter, nothing.  So it doesn't surprise me that another HP would have major issues, our printer we had to take back within a week it was an Office Jet, these are good machines (or should be).  HP's support is one of the worst I've dealt with over the years, sad, because 10 years ago I loved their products.  Thanks again everyone for your help!Sorry we couldn't nail the cause for sure. That seemed the most likely to me, a some of those posts about the recall I found indicated the motherboard had to be replaced because of DAMAGE to the BIOS.Hi Trehahn

I know this post is quite old now, but did you ever find a solution to the problem? I have a Samsung R505 laptop doing exactly the same thing. I have tried several HDD's, different CD Drive, different versions of Windows (originally had Win Vista installed, tried installing Win 7 and get exactly same result.), BIOS updates, swap TESTED RAM, nothing makes any difference, it will only boot to Windows if i leave the Vista, or any other bootable disc, in the drive and ignore the 'Press any key to boot from CD' message.
There are no options to change any relevant settings in BIOS. I have been repairing laptops for over 10 years and this is by far the biggest challenge to date.

If anyone else out there has any other ideas i would gladly try them, having exhausted everything i can think of.

Cheers guys n gals

Tony Please do not resurrect old threads. If you have the same problem you will get much better attention if you start a new thread of your own. Thank you.Ok, Thank you, and sorry.No problem - I'll go ahead and lock this thread to avoid any confusion.