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Imaged Drive no Longer boots - Blinking cursor only


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#1
ClickRight

ClickRight

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I've got a system here that had a bad hard drive (WD 40GB.) I imaged the drive to a brand new 80GB IDE hard drive. When I put the new drive in the machine, a Compaq Presario S4000NX, the BIOS POST completes, then all I get is a blinking cursor.

I put the new drive in one of my test machines, and it started booting up XP just fine, so I know there is nothing wrong with the MBR, etc. I slaved the drive and ran chkdsk, which was also just fine. I've been googling around and there are thousands of accounts of this blinking cursor syndrome, but no definite answer (and no situation that seems to be exactly like mine.)

I've reset the BIOS to defaults, removed all extra Drives (CD and Floppy) and I still get the blinking cursor. ANY ideas would be greatly appreciated. I need this fixed for tomorrow, the client wants their computer back.
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#2
anzenketh

anzenketh

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Hello Clickright,

Have you tried putting in a Hard Drive that you know works and boots into the system that is not working?
Have you Replaced the Cables?

A blinking Cursor usually means that the system attempts to boot but is unable too.

Try clearing Clearing your CMOS Settings by using the Jumpers on the Mainboard.
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#3
ClickRight

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Thanks tuxmaster, but I *JUST* figured it out. I hope this information is helpful to anybody else in a similar predicament!

It's really simple: The machine the drive was originally in had LBA disabled in the BIOS, and the computer I did the imaging on had LBA enabled in the BIOS. Simply enabling LBA on the original machine solved the problem! :)
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#4
anzenketh

anzenketh

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That is good that you could figure out the solution.

Yes that would create a no boot scenario.
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