Getting a black screen and blinking curser?

[Lothar1974]

I tried several times to go into safe mode but my pc just reboots. I am guessing a file corruption? I just now got it to boot from F8 into Last known good and backed everything up. Is my OS hosed and need a fresh format? I am going to run a scan on the hard drive later to make sure its ok. Just wondering if anyones has seen this and knows what it is.
Thanks!!


Lothar

 

[mpilchfamily]

Try running a repair install and see if that fixes the problem.

 

[boomerang]

If you can get back into Last Known Good Configuration, uninstall the latest updates and see if it will boot normally. If you can't get back into LKGC, try Safe Mode and uninstall those updates.

A repair install seems rather drastic as it will wipe out every update on the machine since the pressing of that disk. You need to uninstall those updates, then you can install them one at a time to narrow down which is the problem child.

Nothing wrong with checking your hardware. Things do sometimes happen simultaneously. Verify the hardware and move on.

My computer booted to a black screen with a blinking cursor last week. I had disconnected my hard drives and temporarily installed some others to run a scan on them. After that, a blinking cursor boot for me. I removed a CF card I had mistakenly left in the reader and it booted normally.

I can't explain what happened or why. Just a weird thing.

 

[Lothar1974]

I was able to boot using the last know good option and back everything up. I cannot boot to safe mode at all, just keeps rebooting when I try. I ran a hard drive scan for errors and it came up clean. I think I am going to format and reload to get a clean install, it's been quite a while and I just got a new 500 gig sata I'd like to put my OS on anyways. I back up everything fairly regular, but I had new picks and video of our 10 month old daughter that I thought I was going to lose! Whew! Wife would have killed me!!

Thanks for the suggestions everyone!


Jason

 

[Lothar1974]

OK now I am stumped! I formated my drive and when it rebooted it still went to that black screen with the blinking curser. Anyone have any thoughts? I have a Asus P4P800D-E Deluxe board and a P4 3.2 , corsair memory specified for my board. Any help is greatly appreciated!!!!!


Jason

 

[Rabbits]

Do a repair install with service pack 3.
If your still having the issue, backup, wipe, clean install XP.

Even if you still get it then, probably your graphics hardware. More of a assumption on the hardware part.

 

[Lothar1974]

OK, turns out the video driver was the issue. I downloaded the newest one the same day as the Windows update. Strange, it's the specified driver for my video card but it's causing this issue? I downloaded the previous driver and all is good now. I have a noce new clean install and also installed a 500 gig Seagate sata drive. Thanks for the advise everyone!

Jason

 

[Lothar1974]

Well, not just the video card. Now the mouse and keyboard seem to freeze up on every other restart? Reinstalled the drivers for my Audigy card and pc went into a loop of rebooting. Any thoughts? I am inclined to think it's my motherboard as my hard drive is not even a year old? Thanks!

Jason

 

[MadAmos]

before you spend a lot I have seen several systems latly doing crazy things that turned out to be failed RAM. try downloading memtest86 on a bootable floppy or C/D and run at least 4 passes, overnight is better. I you get any errors try each stick individually and see if you have a bad one or two. Also if you are overclocked try resetting every thing back to default as a failing OC can also cause corruption problems

 

[Lothar1974]

I ran memtest86 last night and there were no issues. I dont over clock, I am going to install Windows on the new hard drive just to check. I am guessing I will have the same issues as I scanned the current hard drive and it was fine. Funny how crap like this always happens when you really need you PC! I was working on making calanders of our 10 month old daughter for Christmas for everyone! Thanks!


Jason