[entrusted]

Many attempts to power on, but get only a black screen with blinking cursor. Attempted OS repair via xp installation cd, but was ineffective. Also ran full system diagnostics with no discrepancies. Am now attempting to access safe mode in order to execute "last known config." option, but F8 produces no response. Lastly, I ran a "fixmbr" command from recovery console, but this also proved ineffective. I feel like I've exhausted all of my known avenues. Ideas? Thanks so much in advance for any insight.

Jeremy

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Can you boot into BIOS? When does the blinking cursor show up: is it immediately after you boot the computer or is it after some DOS-like menus run, before the computer attempts to load windows.

[The Skeptic]

Can you boot into BIOS? When does the blinking cursor show up: is it immediately after you boot the computer or is it after some DOS-like menus run, before the computer attempts to load windows.

[entrusted]

Thanks for your reply. Yes, I can boot into BIOS without any issues. The blinking cursor appears just after the BIOS screen, but then goes immediately black (with blinking cursor) before computer attempts to load Windows. Under the normal startup sequence (internal HD first) the HD can't even be heard. I replaced the hard drive approximately 5 weeks ago, and have been running very smoothly since then. My last power-off was normal. I'm not certain what to attribute this to.

[The Skeptic]

From recovery console run chkdsk /r. This can can take quite some time, depending on the size and condition of the disk. Please let it run to the end. If you get an error message that chkdsk encountered unrecoverable problems then stop the test and report.

[entrusted]

Ok - I'll give it a shot. Thanks again.