blinking cursor on black screen after BIOS before OS

Question

I am running an 8100 with XP Professional (it came with ME). Yesterday my kids' computer would not boot up XP...it's stuck on the black screen with the blinking cursor in top left corner.

I have tried to reboot numerous times...to no avail. I have tried to boot to a diskette (emergency diskettes), it acts like it's going to run, then nothing. I have tried to boot to the ResourceCD and XP CD, but same thing, run, then nothing.

They did have a blue stop screen a few times in the last couple of days which on the Dell.com website seems that we might have a virus...but upon researching all the latest viruses, I can't find one that is this malicious...or would seem to delete system files. And my children don't use email, however, they do access the internet via wireless DSL connection. No telling what they might have downloaded, since I can't get to the log!!! So, I'm totally at a loss as to where to even begin.

If I can't boot from a disk or CD, is it a total loss? Are there some steps that I can take to get it to boot? I can enter F2 (Setup) and set it to boot to them first, then again, nothing! And all the system information in F2 is good and accurate, so it seems that it is okay. I have tried CTRL+ALT+D and drive 0 says pass, Drive 1 says no IDE, and both secondary drives are "diagnostics not supported"...then it says to press ENter to reboot, then back through the BIOS startup and the blinking cursor.....

Thanks in advance!

bjbah · Answer

I know, dumb question, how do I reformat?  I can't find out how to reformat in the books I have...it says how to reinstall XP, but I can't get it to boot to the CD which I have used the F2 setup to make the CD boot first, and nothing!  It acts like it is going to, but it doesn't.  So, I need to try reformatting?

Doctor Corndog · Answer

Well, did you try resetting the CMOS? Yeah, you're going to need to be able to boot to something, a prompt, a CDROM, whatever. I'm just saying, that if you can't boot past the black, you might as well try the easy fixes before you go for the long haul. Reset you CMOS.

redwolfe_98 · Answer

i would try reformatting.. since you have installed win xp on the machine already, i guess that you already know how to format the harddrive, and reinstall windows.. (there are instructions in dell support/solutions/reinstall guide, however you would have to 'select' a system that comes with win xp factory installed to access the information)  make sure that the cd-rom drive is set to 'first boot device' in the bios settings, then put the win xp cd in the cd-rom drive, and reboot.... to access the bios setup to set the cd-rom to first boot device, try pressing F2 as the computer is booting up; press the delete key if F2 doesn't work, to access the bios settings.. check to make sure that there is not a floppy disk in the floppy drive..

Doctor Corndog · Answer

First things first, lets try to reset the CMOS by either moving the jumper, or by removing the battery on the Motherboard for a few minutes and then replacing it. Try that real quicklike just to make sure it's not an easy fix.

redwolfe_98 · Answer

what is the difference between 'clearing the nvram' and 'resetting the cmos'?

bjbah · Answer

THANK YOU!  THANK YOU!  THANK YOU!  THANK YOU!  I simply cannot tell you thank you enough.  I took out the battery on the motherboard for a few minutes and put it back in and UP IT BOOTED!   THANK YOU!  THANK YOU!  THANK YOU!  I don't know what that means it was, but I am so relieved!  THANKS A MILLION!

DELL-Donald K · Answer

Clearing NVRAM just clears the data storage for the peripheral configuration of the MB< Resetting BIOS defaults does that, plus returns the MB BIOS to it's original settings & forces IDE redetection too.

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blinking cursor on black screen after BIOS before OS

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