My hubbys laptop is showing the black screen that says "microsoft had to shut down" it gives him some options to start safe mode, etc, when he tries to start in safe mode it tries to but then goes back to the black screen, its just going round in circles.

Is it beyond hope :(

I'm assuming you had no system restore points made?

If safe mode won't work it probably is beyond hope. You could try one other thing - if the option is available load with last known good configuration.

If that doesnt work you will need to reinstall windows. You can backup your files to a cd, dvd or second hard drive assuming the hard drives are still working, just download a copy of any linux distribution's livecd and pop it in your machine, you will be able to access the filesystem. This isn't that hard, but can be daunting if you are about to ask "what is linux?".

My hubbys laptop is showing the black screen that says "microsoft had to shut down" it gives him some options to start safe mode, etc, when he tries to start in safe mode it tries to but then goes back to the black screen, its just going round in circles.

Is it beyond hope :(

Have you got a disc of the version of Windows you are using? If so, you can repair the version which is on your hard drive, without having to completely reformat your hard drive.

Yes, sorry should've mentioned you can do this.

Although the other PC in my living room is one of a colleague's, and I am fixing it because she used Windows repair.