My son dropped the laptop

it's stuck on the "starting windows" screen. Is there anything I can do to fix this?

Hi Heather57, and welcome to the WTT forums.
Sorry to hear of the accident with the laptop computer:
Here are some steps that you can consider to help check out the computer
1 Disconnect all wires from the computer, (ethernet, Printer, power, etc)
2 Remove any peripheral devices or media that may be attached, E.G. CD discs, USB memory sticks, Floppy discs if applicable.
3 Turn the computer upside down and remove the battery.
4 Next remove the cover containing the RAM modules and make sure that they all are removed and replaced in their correct positions (you will need to take all personal safety and ESD precautions (anti static before doing this) then replace the cover
5 Remove the hard drive( there will be usually a screw or number of screws to remove and then replace it making sure its pushed fully home into its contacts, refit any screw(s) you removed previously to secure it and the cover.
6 Next with the battery still left out refit the main power cable (only the main power cable, nothing else) and try to power on your computer in the usual way.
7 Let us know how you go
Explanation
When a laptop is dropped or suffers a shock it can unseat internal components causing failures, two easier ones to check are the RAM modules and the hard drive, sometimes reseating these two components will do the trick.

If you are still having issues then the next step is to try and test the hard drive ( a shock can actually to physical damage to its internal components) to carry out this test you will need access to a sevicable computer to burn a bootable disc that will test the hard drive.
Here's the link that explains it:
http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=287
try the quick test first, if it passes then try the long test.
Report back with the details of the results and we will advise the next step.
Note there can be any amount of failures in components caused by shock but following the above steps is a good place to start your checks
Regards
paws

WOW! Thanks for the step by step instruction! After I try this ill let you know how it turned out..it might take me a couple days to get to it Thanks again!!!!!

I went to start on what you told me to do and these 2 screens came up Well good grief! I can't attach the pictures I took. The first one said 📎Screenshot_2012_10_25_18_48_04.png well maybe it's right there…basically f2 to run a hard drive check and something to continue with start up. So I pushed f2. The next screen said something was missing. Ill try to get that on here too. "the system check command file is improperly formatted or missing" If you need more information please let me know or if you want me to continue "unplugging" things back in ill try that too I can't tell you thank you enough for helping me!

Hi Heather
IMPORTANT The screen shot you sent, indicates that your hard drive is about to fail…… when it does it will make everything on your hard drive inaccessible..all your photos, music, documents, emails, favourites etc.,everything… and Windows itself will be gone……

If your copy/back up/archive of all important stuff on your computer is only a day or two out of date then make one last effort to get it safely copied off to removable media…… you can remove the hard drive and put it in a USB caddy and access it (hopefully) via another computer or slave it to another computer or use a live Linux disc to access it (Linux Puppy is good for this)

An important thing to remember if you have stuff that you need to copy off is that you might only get the one chance to do so before your drive fails totally…..if you reboot/shut down and restart it can precipitate the failure…so try and get your data copied at the one attempt….

If you have a good disc image made when the computer was working well then you can fit a new hard drive( there are relatively inexpensive now) and be up and running again in less time than it takes to walk the dog!…..if you haven't then you will need to use the recovery disc(s) that came with your computer (or that you made when you first got it, or get an (hopefully) inexpensive copy from HP..
Post back if you need help with any of this…
If your back up is all OK then follow the steps of removing all wires, CDs etc and then using the bootable CD( instructions and link in my previouis post) to test/repair your hard drive.
As an alternative you can try the F2 as per your screen shot and if you can get to a command prompt then chkdsk /r may help(BUT) makes sure you data is all safe on removable media BEFORE trying to repair it or running chkdsk /r
Explanation.
Running chkdsk /r or carring out a drive repair using the HP utility or any other can often "make or break", that is to say, fix the issue (unlikely from the description you provided or break it completely!) that's why its important to make sure everything that is on the computer that dont want to lose is safely copied to removable media.

Regards
and good luck!
paws