[JimSellers]

I,ve got a Dell Inspiron 8500, with Windows XP Home Edition, and I have the old “Windows doesn’t start with the black screen and blinking cursor” problem. My wife’s computer with XP starts with the initial Dell screen, with F2 for startup, and F12 for Boot menu options, and then goes for a second or two to the black screen with blinking cursor, just like mine. After a second or two, she gets the Windows startup screen with the XP logo, and the blue rectangles moving from left to right, and continues to start normally. My computer just stays with the black screen with blinking cursor. This may be too simplistic, but it occurs to me that if I could copy the files that are involved in the first few steps of the Windows start up process from a working system into mine, maybe mine would work. If you think this is possible, tell me which files to copy into the Windows directory, or wherever they should go, to try this. Maybe I could identify which are the problem files by comparing size of these first few startup files between my wife’s working system and mine. I’ve done a lot of reading, and tried all of the stuff in “Recovery Console,” to no avail. F8 has no effect on my computer, although F2 and F12 do work Any other ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Jim

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Give this a try. Without knowing a little more about what caused the problem, I can't guarantee it will work...and it requires the machine you make the disk on AND the machine you are fixing are both running XP.

Please download RC.ISO and save it somewhere you can find it.
Also download MagicISO.

Start MagicISO. You should see a window informing you about the full version of MagicISO.
In the bottom right select Try It! and the program will open.
Click on File and then on Open and navigate to the RC.ISO file you downloaded. Select it, and click Open.

First, we'll need to add a clean version of userinit.exe to the current RC.ISO

* In the upper right pane, double click on the i386 folder.
* Right click in the upper right pane and select Add Files...
* Navigate to C:\Windows\System32 and select userinit.exe
* Then click Open to add userinit.exe to the CD image.
* Click File and select Save As...
* Name the file RCplus and save it somewhere you can find it.


Next, we'll need to burn the newly created image to a disk that we can use to fix the problem.

* Put a blank CD-R disk in your CD burner and close the tray. If an AutoPlay window opens, close it.
* Click on Tools and select Burn CD/DVD with ISO.... A window will appear.
* Click on the little folder to the right of CD/DVD Image File then navigate to the newly created RCplus.iso Image file and click Open.
* In the CD/DVD Writing Speed drop-down menu choose the 8X setting.
* Under Format make sure that Mode 1 is selected.
* And finally, click on the Burn it! button to burn RCplus.iso to disk.


Once the disk is burned, put it in the machine you want to fix and restart it.
Boot to the CD just as you would with a Windows XP disk.
At the Welcome to Setup screen, press R to enter the Recovery Console.
Choose the installation to be repaired by number (usually 1) and press Enter.
When you are asked for the Administrator password, enter the password or leave it blank (default) and press Enter.

At the C:\Windows> prompt, type the following commands pressing Enter after each one. Note: Watch the spaces.

D:
cd i386
copy userinit.exe c:\windows\system32
exit


After putting in the third command, you should receive the message 1 file copied which will indicate that the operation succeeded.
Now take out the CD and reboot your computer to normal mode. Try to log in and it should let you back in.

Thanks to wannabe1

[rshaffer61]

Give this a try. Without knowing a little more about what caused the problem, I can't guarantee it will work...and it requires the machine you make the disk on AND the machine you are fixing are both running XP.

Please download RC.ISO and save it somewhere you can find it.
Also download MagicISO.

Start MagicISO. You should see a window informing you about the full version of MagicISO.
In the bottom right select Try It! and the program will open.
Click on File and then on Open and navigate to the RC.ISO file you downloaded. Select it, and click Open.

First, we'll need to add a clean version of userinit.exe to the current RC.ISO

* In the upper right pane, double click on the i386 folder.
* Right click in the upper right pane and select Add Files...
* Navigate to C:\Windows\System32 and select userinit.exe
* Then click Open to add userinit.exe to the CD image.
* Click File and select Save As...
* Name the file RCplus and save it somewhere you can find it.


Next, we'll need to burn the newly created image to a disk that we can use to fix the problem.

* Put a blank CD-R disk in your CD burner and close the tray. If an AutoPlay window opens, close it.
* Click on Tools and select Burn CD/DVD with ISO.... A window will appear.
* Click on the little folder to the right of CD/DVD Image File then navigate to the newly created RCplus.iso Image file and click Open.
* In the CD/DVD Writing Speed drop-down menu choose the 8X setting.
* Under Format make sure that Mode 1 is selected.
* And finally, click on the Burn it! button to burn RCplus.iso to disk.


Once the disk is burned, put it in the machine you want to fix and restart it.
Boot to the CD just as you would with a Windows XP disk.
At the Welcome to Setup screen, press R to enter the Recovery Console.
Choose the installation to be repaired by number (usually 1) and press Enter.
When you are asked for the Administrator password, enter the password or leave it blank (default) and press Enter.

At the C:\Windows> prompt, type the following commands pressing Enter after each one. Note: Watch the spaces.

D:
cd i386
copy userinit.exe c:\windows\system32
exit


After putting in the third command, you should receive the message 1 file copied which will indicate that the operation succeeded.
Now take out the CD and reboot your computer to normal mode. Try to log in and it should let you back in.

Thanks to wannabe1

[JimSellers]

Thanks for the speedy reply. I followed the directions, and got the disk burned as explained with the following exceptions. 8X was not an option for burning speed, and so 10X was selected, and the CD seemed to burn OK. When going into Recovery Console with the RCplus CD, there was no choice of Windows installations to be repaired, and no request for administrative password, just the C:\ prompt. When I copied the file, I got no “1 file copied” message, and when I checked, sure enough the old file was still there. I figured it was the old one because it had a different date and size than the new one on the RCplus disk. I renamed the old userinit.exe to userinitold.exe, and tried the copy again, but got an “Access is denied.” message. How do I get around this?? Thanks again, Jim

[rshaffer61]

So you rebooted and it didn't go into windows?

[JimSellers]

I couldn't copy the userinit.exe file to C:\ because I got an "Access is denied." message.

[JimSellers]

Let me be a little more specific. I couldn't copy the "userinit.exe" file into C:\windows\system32, because I got an "Access is denied." message. I tried to copy it to just C:\ thinking that if that worked, I could put in the XP disk, and maybe copy it from C:\ to C:\windows\system32. I got a "The file could not be copied." message.

[rshaffer61]

Put your winxp cd in cd drive and reboot your system
When prompted to push any key to boot to cdrom then click a key
Click R to enter recovery console

Type the following

expand d:\i386\userinit.ex_ c:\windows\system32
click enter

Once it says 1 file copied
Then type exit and click enter
System will reboot
Make sure to remove winxp cd before it boots up and let it boot fully
Windows should start normally

If not post with result 

[JimSellers]

I did as suggested, and got a "1 file(s) expanded" message. Not "1 file(s) copied." I removed the disk and rebooted, and got the same blank screen with blinking cursor. I rebooted with the WinXP cd, changed directories to C:\windows\system32, and typed "dir." There is a different userinit.exe there, but not the same one as on the RCplus disk. The original userinit.exe, which I renamed userinitold.exe is dated 9/03/02, and has 22016 bytes. The userinit.exe currently in C:\windows\system32 is dated 08/28/02, and has the same number of bytes, 22016. The userinit.exe on the RCplus.iso disk is dated 04/14/08, and has 26112 bytes. I again tried to copy it to C:\windows\system32, and again, got an "Access is denied." message. I tried to copy it to C:\ and again got a "The file could not be copied." message. Thanks for your patience. Jim

[rshaffer61]

OK then let's do a repair installation. This should keep your data safe so no worries there.

Do you have a Genuine Windows XP disk or are you using a Recovery disk and are you using a recovery disk for the above steps?

[JimSellers]

I am using a disk supplied by Dell with the computer. It is called XPSP1_PER_ENG Hope this helps.

[rshaffer61]

Ahh it may be a recovery disk.
Does it say recovery, OS or OS and Drivers?

[JimSellers]

Unfortunately, the original is at home, and this is a copy of it, so I can't read the label. The included folders when I "explore" it are:
$OEM$
Docs
DOTNETFX
I386
SUPPORT
VALUEADD
AUTORUN.INF
README.HTM
SETUP.EXE
SPNOTES.HTM
WIN51
WIN51IC
WIN51IC.SP1

[rshaffer61]

OK that may be the problem. It doesn't look like all the file sare on the disk

[Murray S.]

Howdy all:

Just a piece of info here, but Dell supplies full install cd's not just recovery cd's. They also supply the drivers on a separate cd.

If this is a TRUE copy of YOUR install cd, then it should do the repair option as suggested.

Murray

[JimSellers]

Can I search the disk for one of the necessary files to see if it's there?