Installing Windows After Damages

This is a messy little story but a very big problem.

A few nights ago, a friend accidently threw up on my Dell
Inspiron 1100 laptop while it was on. It went off and
would not go back on again. So I opened it all up and
gave it a very thorough cleaning. I attempted to start it
up and it said it could not find an operating system
(Windows XP Pro). I rebooted it with the install disk in
the CD-Rom and the windows setup auto started. Since my
keyboard no longer worked, I hooked up an external board
which it read for the most part.

After it loaded the initial files, a window poped up
saying something like, "Press Enter to set up windows....
Press R to repair the Windows installation... Press F3 to
quit setup". However every time this screen appears, my
keyboard suddendly dies and I can't press Enter to
continue. So I restarted and all of a sudden Windows ran
and my desktop showed up like it was before the incident.
It froze quickly however and I had to restart. Since that
one time, Windows has never loaded and the Windows auto-
setup screen always shows up.

I have played around with turning off some devices but
nothing works. Im wondering if maybe the incident damaged
the hard drive and it can no longer install or maybe the
motherboard is damaged. Its just wierd because windows
DID start once like normal. Got any ideas on how I could
install Windows?

Also, if you have real answers, it would be AWESOME if
youd email it to me: emausb@student.gvsu.edu
otherwise posting here with ideas would also be sweet.

Thank you for the help!!

-Brett-