[naeby]

Our Alienware desktop will not boot up. When it is powered on, all we get is a black screen with a flashing cursor. Last night I tried to boot into safe mode and got as far as the screen that has the options listed, such as safe mode.

is there anything I can do?



eta: after the last attempt and a few minutes had passed I received the options again to boot into safe mode. this time i was able to select it and it did boot up....very slowly.

Edited by naeby, 19 September 2008 - 05:51 PM.

[Advertisements]

Can you move around in safemode easily? Very slow movements of the cursor usually mean a video problem or a hardware that is failing. Heres a video chart list for finding the problem.

http://www.fonerbooks.com/video.htm

I would try checking the video card in another computer even if you only check it in safemode.

Try hitting the F8 key while the computer is booting up and choose "Last Known Good Configuration" and see if the problem goes away.

Boot to the XP setup CD, and press 'r' for recovery console and run the command : CHKDSK /R

SRX660

[SRX660]

Can you move around in safemode easily? Very slow movements of the cursor usually mean a video problem or a hardware that is failing. Heres a video chart list for finding the problem.

http://www.fonerbooks.com/video.htm

I would try checking the video card in another computer even if you only check it in safemode.

Try hitting the F8 key while the computer is booting up and choose "Last Known Good Configuration" and see if the problem goes away.

Boot to the XP setup CD, and press 'r' for recovery console and run the command : CHKDSK /R

SRX660

[naeby]

we ran defrag last night, it took all night, and there's only 12% free space on the hard drive. I was able to reboot normally this morning. I think (and correct me if need be) we are running out of room on our hard drive that's 6 years old. I am thinking it's possible a new hard drive would be a fair investment, and definitely an external one to back up all the media files.

i was able to move around okay in safe mode.

thanks for the link!
have a great weekend

[SRX660]

Yes, i usually try to keep at least 15% free space on any harddrive. Otherwise defrag, large programs( games) and running many windows( like when you are making web pages with graphics) end up running very slowly because they are using swap space for memory.

6 Year old computer? While it's possible to run one that old, the improvements in hardware in new computers really say you should buy a new one. I doubt you can find a hard drive small enough to run in a computer that old. The smallest drive i could find was a ATA100 - 40 gig drive at newegg.

SRX660

[naeby]

it is an alienware and at the time we bought it was all top of the line. we recently put in new RAM, and the only other thing that's ever gone wrong is the power box (where the cord plugs into the back *don't know the proper terms*) had to be replaced about a year ago. i think I will go back to them (alienware) and see if they can suggest anything. thanks for your help