Skip to main content

Unsolved

This post is more than 5 years old

VA Frog

1 Message

146789

March 24th, 2013 12:00

Black screen, blinking cursor on re-boot

I run an Inspiron 518 with Windows VISTA.  Recently, when re-booting after system "cleaning," I get only a black screen with blinking cursor in upper left hand corner. To get back to Dell Start Screen, I must use Control-Alt-Delete, then F12 when start-up occurs, and step through the boot screen menu to get a choice that will put me back into log in.  This is time-consuming and frustrating.  It's a relatively new problem.

DELL-Chinmay S

4 Operator

 • 

1.8K Posts

March 24th, 2013 22:00

Hi VA Frog,

You may drain out the residual power of computer by following the steps below:

  • Power off the system from the power button or the wall jack.
  • Disconnect the power cable from the wall jack and remove all the cables connected to the back of system tower including the power cable.
  • Press and hold the power button pressed for 30 seconds.
  • Connect the power cable, keyboard and monitor cable only.
  • Power on the system. 

If the issue persists, you may check in system BIOS if the hard drive gets detected:

  • Restart your computer and tap F2 at Dell logo.
  • Navigate to 'Standard CMOS Features'.
  • Check if the hard drive gets detected. As an example image is shown below:

 

  • If not press F9 to load defaults and F10 to save and exit

You may also run hardware diagnostics to ensure the correct functionality of system hardware. To run diagnostics on your computer: 

  • Restart your computer and tap F12 at Dell logo.
  • Highlight diagnostics and Hit Enter
  • Make a note of error code if any. 

Please share the findings. 

Was this post helpful?

View All

Top