[RunninTwentiFo7]

I have a compaq presario dekstop running on XP, and it will not start up. It loads the screen with the compaq logo, then it goes black with the blinking underscore in the top left corner so I can't even load the computer in safe mode or anything. I dont have a cursor to move around and I can't use the keyboard to type a command on the screen or anything.I'm on my laptop right now and I'm not sure what to do. I can't really explain much more because it doesn't even get to load the windows XP logo to where I can boot in safe mode. The screen turns black almost immediately after I power it on.

I don't know if this would have to anything to do with it, but I did use one of those dust remover cans to blow out the dust in my fan this morning after I shut the computer down because I noticed it was really dusty. However, it seemed to just blow a bunch of liquid into the fan. The bottle says it dries instantly though, so i'm not sure if this caused the problem. I noticed it wouldn't turn on after I did this.

I was also moving my computer to a different part of the room, so I had to take all the wires connected to the computer out and put them back in. When I was almost done, I accidentally powered the computer on while trying to put it back in the cabinet, so I pushed the power button to turn it off. Then I hit the button again accidentally, and turned it off again. I'm not sure if this could have caused the problem too because I did not properly shut down the computer both times. I just held the power button down on the tower.

Any help would be appreciated. I would install XP again, but i'm pretty sure COMPAQ never gave us an XP CD, it was just already loaded on the computer.

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Hello RunninTwentiFo7...

There are a few things we can try. If you have a Windows XP disk of the same version, you can use that to access Recovery Console to run these procedures. If you don't have an XP disk, download RC.iso and burn it to a cd as an ISO image.

If you don't have burning software capable of burning an ISO Image, you can use a free burning tool like ISO Recorder to do this...be sure to get the version for the operating system you'll be creating the disk on.

Once you have created this disk, boot the broken machine with it. At the Welcome to Setup screen, press the R key to access Recovery Console. It should give you a partition to log on to...select this by number (usually 1) and press Enter. When prompted for the Administrator password, leave it blank and press Enter...unless, of course, you have set a system password...then use that.

Once at the Recovery Console prompt (C:\Windows>), type chkdsk /r and press Enter. (Note the space before /r)

This will start a very thorough check of the file system and recover any bad sectors that may be preventing the machine from booting properly. Be patient, this is a long check...let it finish. It may appear to hang or even back up...this is normal. I've seen this check take anywhere from 45 minutes to several hours.

When the check completes and you are again presented with the C:\Windows> prompt, type exit and press Enter. Let the machine try to boot normally and see if it will load to the desktop.

wannabe1

[wannabe1]

Hello RunninTwentiFo7...

There are a few things we can try. If you have a Windows XP disk of the same version, you can use that to access Recovery Console to run these procedures. If you don't have an XP disk, download RC.iso and burn it to a cd as an ISO image.

If you don't have burning software capable of burning an ISO Image, you can use a free burning tool like ISO Recorder to do this...be sure to get the version for the operating system you'll be creating the disk on.

Once you have created this disk, boot the broken machine with it. At the Welcome to Setup screen, press the R key to access Recovery Console. It should give you a partition to log on to...select this by number (usually 1) and press Enter. When prompted for the Administrator password, leave it blank and press Enter...unless, of course, you have set a system password...then use that.

Once at the Recovery Console prompt (C:\Windows>), type chkdsk /r and press Enter. (Note the space before /r)

This will start a very thorough check of the file system and recover any bad sectors that may be preventing the machine from booting properly. Be patient, this is a long check...let it finish. It may appear to hang or even back up...this is normal. I've seen this check take anywhere from 45 minutes to several hours.

When the check completes and you are again presented with the C:\Windows> prompt, type exit and press Enter. Let the machine try to boot normally and see if it will load to the desktop.

wannabe1

[jrro_40]

I had the same black screen cursor issue with my gateway laptop. The first time it happened I wiped out everything and reinstalled xp. The second time it happened i researched a little deeper and discovered the solution. I disconnect the hard drive and start your pc until i receive the "no operating system found error". Then i turn off the pc and reconnect the hard drive. When i restarted, I received the XP loading screen and everything booted up ok. Hope this helps someone else.

[anubis4of6]

Help!
I get the same thing on my desktop that jrro_40 gets
I try every thing
I have a set of CD's I burned when frist got the computer they were not working so I order another set via compaq hp and they did not work
when i put the CD,s in I get a blackscreen that say non-system disk or disk error press any key to continue. with blinking cursor under it when you press the anykey it will restart and the same screen came up. i try just turning the cp on and thru boot menu and tried both sets samething.

even try what RunninTwentiFo7 siad to do and that did not help

pls help! anubis4of6

[Tony Diamonds]

It sounds to me like you need to go into the BIOS and check the boot order settings to make sure that the system has the cd drive as the first boot device followed by the hard drive. Depending on your model of computer, you can enter the BIOS setup screen by pressing either the F1, F2, F10, or Delete key repeatedly while the machine is starting up. It is a timing thing once you find the right key, just keep trying until you get in. Other than that, you may have a bad hard drive. The message you are getting will appear if you have a dead hard drive ( it can still be dead even if it is spinning ), or if the hard drive has no valid boot sector or operating system on it. Hope this helps

[happyrock]

Tony Diamonds ...if you look just above eah persons post you will see the date it was posted...
this topic was started in DEC 2008 and the last post was in MAR 2009...
don't bother post to old threads...
BTW...

[Eddie Martin]

i tried that wannabe 1 and it didnt but thats anyways

[rshaffer61]

Direct to: Eddie Martin

Please start your own topic as this topic has not had a response since Oct 1 of last year and was originally started DEC 2008.
Although your issue may seem similar there can be other factors that may need to be resolved.
By bumping on someone's topic it makes it confusing for the tech to understand who they are helping. This can in turn cause the wrong support to be given and can cause instability or worse to happen to your system.
Please post more information as to your exact issue in your topic. Include any error messages you get as well as your system specs. This will help us to assist you more efficiently.
Thank you for your cooperation.