[T W]

I am having a similar problem of others (quin8484) here with a Dell computer with Windows XP Professional about three years old. I am getting the blinking cursor after reboot.

The problem started after closing down the computer after hanging on a couple of emails in Outlook Express. When the computer rebooted it booted to the splash screen of Dell and then a blinking cursor in the upper left hand corner of the screen. I have tried the repair feature of the Windows XP CD to no avail. When I went into the repair feature I was able to do a check disk and it stated that the drive was working fine. When I went into the setup it showed the drives and no apparent errors. I have disconnected everything from the back of the computer and checked to ensure cables, and power supplies on the motherboard were seated correctly.

I know that you have stated a few suggestions but none of these have worked thus far.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

T W

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can you boot into safe mode.. try using system restore...
have you tested the RAM...
have you tested the hard drive for errors using chkdsk from the repair console..

[happyrock]

can you boot into safe mode.. try using system restore...
have you tested the RAM...
have you tested the hard drive for errors using chkdsk from the repair console..

[T W]

I can not boot into safe mode

I have not been able to test the ram yet

I have tested the hard drive for errors using chkdsk from the repair console and there were no problems.

I am getting no beeps from the computer...not getting to the POST

I have checked all the connections on the motherboard and drives to ensure that they are secure

I can boot to the CD/DVD drive

Everything appears to be normal in setup

[happyrock]

if you can't get thru POST ...its probably a power supply or hardware issue...
have you got all your data backed up

[T W]

Actually it is my next door neighbors computer. He has an external hard drive that I believe he has been backing up to.

Refresh my memory: The "POST" occurs after the machine is first turned on and the system is checked via a series of beeps and data written to the screen such as amount of memory etc..

[happyrock]

yep..POST is when you first boot up it checks to make sure the power on the rails is getting the right amounts of power..IE 12 V rail is getting 12 V... 5 V rail is getting 5 V... and the 3.3 is getting 3.3 V..ect
then it quick checks the RAM..
then it does a roll call to see what hardware is connected to the computer...and if all is well its starts loading the OS
the beep codes are used when it does not get far enough along to load basic video drivers..if it gets that far it will/should show any errors on the screen....
try disconnecting everything except the monitor ...keyboard...mouse

[T W]

Hi happyrck,

Thank you so much for all of your assistance.

I have disconnected everything except the mouse, keyboard and monitor to no avail.

I am just surprised that this machine toasted on a simple email conflict...but obviously it was going to fail no matter what happened...

[happyrock]

when you hard shutdown the computer bad things can happen..always save that as a last resort..

here is the canned fix for xp not booting...
you could go down the list but I would try fixboot first...followed by Fixmbr


If Windows XP (or 2000) refuses to start, press F8 right after you turn on your PC but before the Windows log-on appears (it may take a few attempts to get the timing right). At the resulting menu, select Last Known Good Configuration to restore your Registry to an earlier date.

If this doesn't get your PC working, reboot and press F8 again, but this time select Safe Mode, and then choose Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, System Restore. Follow the wizard's instructions and pick an appropriate backup.

If that approach doesn't work either, or if you can't even get to this menu, use your emergency boot floppy. If your hard drive's boot sector or Windows' basic boot files have been corrupted, this disk will circumvent the problem and boot you into Windows. If you don't have an emergency boot floppy, you may be able to use one created on another PC running Windows XP or Windows 2000, but there's no guarantee that it will boot your machine.

To make one, insert a blank floppy disk into drive A:, select Start, All Programs, Accessories, Command Prompt, type format a:, and press Enter. When asked if you want to format another disk, type n and press Enter. Type the following commands, pressing Enter after each one.

xcopy c:\boot.ini a: /h
xcopy c:\ntdetect.com a: /h
xcopy c:\ntldr a: /h

Now type exit and press Enter to close the window. Remove the floppy disk and label it "Windows XP boot floppy." Put this emergency disk in the floppy drive of your inoperable machine and boot up. Windows should run with no problems. You could simply keep the floppy in the drive all the time, but to truly fix the problem, launch the command prompt as described above, type xcopy a:*.* c:\ /h, and press Enter.

If the emergency boot floppy doesn't work, try the Recovery Console, a Windows utility that provides a DOS-like command line from which you can run some repair programs. It's tricky to use if you're not accustomed to command lines, and you can damage your data, so be careful.

If you have a Microsoft Windows CD-ROM, you can get to the Recovery Console by booting from that CD and pressing any key when you're told to 'Press any key to boot from CD'. At the 'Welcome to Setup' screen, press r for Repair.

If Windows XP or 2000 came with your computer and you don't have a Microsoft Windows CD-ROM, the Recovery Console might be on one of the CDs the vendor bundled with your PC. But it might not. Fortunately, the Recovery Console is hidden in a free, downloadable Microsoft program called Setup Disks for Floppy Boot Install. Visit Microsoft's site here to download the setup-disk file that works with XP Professional; available too is the XP Home version, which will also work for Windows 2000, Me, and 98.

When you run the download, it puts the XP installation program, including the Recovery Console, onto a set of six floppy disks. To get to the Recovery Console, boot from the first floppy, and then swap disks as prompted until you reach the 'Welcome to Setup' screen. Press r to open the Recovery Console.

Figure 1 below shows a list of the Recovery Console's most useful commands. For detailed information on a particular command, type the command followed by a space and /?, as in chkdsk /?. (Not all the commands will be available if you don't have a Windows CD-ROM.)

Recovery Console Commands
Command Function
Chkdsk1 Checks disks for errors.
Diskpart Creates and deletes partitions.
Extract2 Extracts files from compressed.cab archives.
Fixboot Writes a new boot sector.
Fixmbr Writes a new master boot record.
Help Lists the Recovery Console commands.

Footnotes:
1 If you load the Recovery Console from floppy disks, chkdsk may complain that it can't locate autochk.exe . When it asks for that file's location, point it to c:\windows\system32.
2 Extract is not available if you load the Recovery Console from floppy disks.

Edited by happyrck, 08 June 2007 - 08:59 AM.

[T W]

Using fixboot will not damage nor destroy the data...is that correct?

Thanks so much for the advice.

[happyrock]

Using fixboot will not damage nor destroy the data...is that correct?

won't hurt any data at all...same for Fixmbr

[T W]

Hi happyrck,

I tried the "Fixboot" to no avail and when I tried the "Fixmbr" it said that the configuration was non standard or corrupt and that I might not be able to access the partitions and that if I wanted to continue and I stated "no". I want to make sure if that we have to take this drive out and put it in a new system that I can still access all the data. Please let me know your thoughts.

Thanks,

T W

[T W]

To Happyrck,

Hello again,

I tried to put the drive in a Windows 98 machines as the slave...the bios recognizes it, but Windows does not. Have I lost all of my neighbor's data with the fixboot command from the repair console?

Thanks so much for explaining this to me.

Sincerely,

T W

[happyrock]

no..you have not lost any data...XP uses NTFS and 98 uses FAT 32...you will have to go here to get
NTFS for Windows 98 v1.03
is an NTFS file system driver which allows you to access any NTFS drives present on your system. Once you install the program, any NTFS (New Technology File System) drives present on your system become fully accessible as native Windows 98 volumes...
the easiest way is to slave the drive to another xp computer...

Edited by happyrck, 10 June 2007 - 09:55 AM.

[T W]

Hi Happyrck,

Thanks for the response. When you run fixboot it changes the boot record but what does this do when you try to slave this hard drive to another one in Windows XP? My friend is buying a new computer today and I am afraid that my running fixboot may have corrupted his data, but what you are stating is that once I put this in the new computer as a slave there should be no problem seeing the old hard drive as long as I slave it to it? Right?

The guy had so much data on that drive and I am a little paranoid that when he gets his new computer because we changed the boot record with fixboot that the data may be there but I won't be able to access the drive. Thanks so much for all of your advice. You truly are great helping us.

Sincerely,

T W

[T W]

Hi Happyrck,

The computer that he is buying is going to have Windows XP Professional as the operating system with enough power to move on to Vista once that operating system becomes stable.

T W