Wont boot here I go again ==>

this time it's the kid's laptop.

almost 2 yr old Toshiba

when DH came down stairs to sit and have morning coffee..... he opened the lid, and the screen was 'doing it's thing' like it was booting up.

i gather it was not turned off at night, like no one ever does....

but the screen was saying the "computer was not turned off properly.... " thing
then the screen comes up with the boot options of SAFE MODE, SAFE MODE WITH NETWORKING, or normal Mode.

no matter what on you click, it acts like it's going to boot, then screen blanks and back to that ... "did not shut down properly" screen.

now -- after what i went thru last month with my tower .... my first assumption is memory.

what are your thoughts?

OH ... and i have a busy morning then i'm leaving town when my errands are complete ... so i have NO time to deal with this today.
I just may make the kid take it to Best Buy and have them deal with it.

OH -- i did go into the Boot set up thing and changed it to CD/DVD, popped in the Restore disk, and the only option is to reformat, which i DO NOT want to do, because i know he has never backed this thing up, and i know [have a feeling] it is the RAM.
There were no type of utilities on the CD, only restore.

Terese