[Gmod-help] Loading issues

[Jeremy Bookmyer]

My name is Jeremy Bookmyer.
I purchased gmod 10 shortly after the Orange Box was released. I had no 
trouble with it at all until the new patch was released. I took a 
friend's advice and just did a clean install to prevent any issues with 
old add ons. After the fresh install the game loaded just fine 
initially. When I went to change the graphics settings to medium rather 
than high, the game crashed. Ever since, whenever I try to load the game 
I see the traditional HL2 load screen (the square outside the train 
station.) After the loading is complete I get a black screen with a 
blinking mouse that does not change. I have tried completely wiping the 
game from the drive to no avail.
I am running the game on a HP Pavilion dv6000 laptop with 2gb of RAM, an 
AMD Turion 64 X2 1.8 GHz processor, a nVidia GeForce 7200 graphics card 
with updated drivers, and Vista Business. No HL2 games have given me any 
trouble.

Thank you in advance.
Jeremy Bookmyer.