E1505 Blinking Cursor after Post

I would suspect that the hard drive has failed. You would be well advised to remove the drive and attach it to a working computer via an external USB adapter. Backup any files you need. Then re-instate the drive in the E1505 and run dignostics on the drive. You might have to download the diagnostic CD from Dell and run it from the CD drive.

If the drive is faulty you need a new drive (cheap enough these days) and you can re-intall using your Vista DVD.

Thanks for the recommendation. I have the Dell Diagnostic CD, but my system didn't try booting from it, and I can't access the boot menu.

Thanks for the recommendation. I have the Dell Diagnostic CD, but my system didn't try booting from it, and I can't access the boot menu.

I assume you mean you tried tapping the "F12" key when the first Dell logo appeared, after a power on, and go no boot device selection menu.

If so remove the hard drive, and see can you boot your diagnostic CD. If you can boot the diags and there are no issues then likely the hard drive is toast.

As a matter of interest, what make of drive?

I took the hard drive out, and when I boot up the same problems are there. As for the Dell Diagnostic CD, the Diagnostic Utility for my lap;ton came on the Drivers and Uuilities CD, is that CD bootable. I tried booting up the laptop with that CD in the drive, but the system didn't try accessing it. To reiterate, I still cannot access the BIOS Setup (F2), Boot Menu (F12), nor Diagnostic Boot Selected (FN). The hard drive is a Samsung Serial ATA drive, model HM160JI, and I'll need to get an enclosure or adapter so I can try accessing that from another machine. With me not being able to access any of the BIOS functions, could it be a BIOS issue. I downloaded a newer version of the BIOS for machine, but can't install it since I can't boot anything.

Update.... Good and bad news... I saw a posting on another board online that mentioned that blinking cursor issue being related to having a lot of things connection to the machine causing a power supply issue.  So I tried disconnecting everything I could to my Inspiron E1505, and believe it or not Windows started, and I chose to have it come up in Safe Mode. Safe mode functioned normally, So I rebooted the machine into normal Windows, for which it came up fine. . I took advantage of it being up to run the Dell Diagnostic Utility, and that didn't find any errors. Then I took further advantage to backup my registry, as well as all of my C: drive. After all that, I saw a yellow & white box down in the right corner of my screen telling me that due to an update, the system would be restarted. I told it to do that, and as part of Shutting Down it gave me the normal green background and said it was installing updates stage 2 of 3. During that I left the room for a couple of mins and when I got back I found it at the black screen with blinking cursor again. I sense that it finished rebooting after installed those updates, and  and upon booting up the blinking cursor problem arose again.  Thinking back to when I had the first blinking cursor issue, that problem initially occured after installing updates during a reboot. Leads one to believe the updates are doing something to Windows, to stop it from starting. I had planned to change the startup order in the BIOS to use the CD first, but the blinking cursor problem surfaced before I could do that. I hope I can get it to boot up again.

You have some faulty hardware somewhere. Or the ESCD is corrupt. So if you can get the system to boot at all, then use F2 to get the bios menu and then find the option to load default values and then save and exit. The system will be stay longer than normal on the Dell screen for the next boot.

The most likely item to have failed is the hard drive. It could also be the optical drive, biut normally the issue with these is reading or booting CD/DVDs as distinct from pulling the system down. On the other hand the hard drive can stop boot.. And it is not unknown for both to be toast.

Remove the hard drive, optical drive and remove and reseat the memory modules. See can you beg, borrow or steal a USB optical drive and boot the dignostic CD from that. If the system passes diags with no drives at all, then the issue will be with the drives. Most likely the hard drive.

You could connect the hard drive to another working computer via a USB adapter and then test the drive using the manufacturers diagnostics. Look at the drive, you should be able to see the maker and type, so go to the manufacturers website and look for a dignostic CD. All makers have them and mostly a Hitachi diagnostic CD will run on a Seagate or Western Digital and vice-versa.

It booted up yesterday, and with that it finished installation the updates. I rebooted it so I could access BIOS and change the boot order, and it booted up fine. I'll try it again tonight.

What does the load default values do, and what does ESCD stand for. I was able to run the Diagnostic Utility the other day, and the system passed every test, including the hard drive. However, after those tests ran that day it rebooted as part of installing the updates, and went into the blank screen blinking cursor state as mentioned in my last post.

Loading default values for the bios, in the main, causes the system to rebuild the table of hardware installed in the system and to reallocate the hardware resources that are required by each device.

The table of resources being used and by which device are stored in an area of the non-volatile CMOS memory called the ESCD (Extended System Configuration Data). Windows hardware drivers read the ESCD data to see how to make the operating system communicate with the hardware devices. And can also re-write it.

So if you have bad drivers it is entirely possible that the system will boot, Windows will run and then the system hangs on the next restart.

For the last 4 days, the machine booted up into Windows fine, but Windows operated slow. A few days ago I upgraded the BIOS to A17 (i.e. was A15). As for running test on the hard drive, at present I do not have an adapter to connect to USB. However, I have Dell Support Center on that machine, which has a utility for checking hard drives. It has a short test, and an extensive test, and I ran both that the utility showed everything passed. So I decided to reconnect everything back to it (i.e. monitor, USB keyboard/mouse, floppy drive, printer, speakers) , and when I booted it up it went back to the blinking cursor problem. I shut it down and disconnected a few things, tried it agaiin, and the only way it would boot up into Windows was with none of those items connected. In my post back on Mar 7th, I mentioned that I had seen a posting on another board talking about power supply issues causing a blinking cursor problem during boot up. Do you think my issue is a power supply issue.

For this past week, I have not experienced the blinking cursor problem, but I hadn't had many of the peripheral devices connected. Yesterday I did the load defaults in the BIOS settings, and it booted up fine afterwards. I'll try to boot it up with everything I normally had connected to it to see if the blinking cursor re-occurs.  

After having done the Load Defaults in the BIOS a few days ago, yesterday I tried booting the system up with all the peripherals attached, and I got the blinking cursor cursor problem. After restarting, during the PostI was able to get to the Boot Menu, and had it boot Diagnostics. It ran the Pre-boot System Assessment and everything passed. Then I had it run the Express Test, System Test and everything passed those tests. The day before I had run the Extended Test, and with that everything passed.

Since none of the hardware tests have shown any problems, I'm wondering if the problem is with the Vista operating system, but after running the Diagnostics it does boot up into Windows fine. However, going back to my initiat posting on this board, the problem initially happened when the system was in the process of installing updates from Windows Update. Later on after finally getting Windows to boot, the installing process of those set of updates completed. After that the only way it would boot into Windows is when I disconnected most of the peripherals. I'm thinking I should run Repair for Vista, but wanted to ask if I can do that from the Operating System CD that Dell sent with my laptop. Often those such CD's can only restore the system to it's initial state, but I want to hold that for the last resort.

Finally got around to running Startup Repair, and it found no errors. Not sure what to do next. Dell Dianostics didn't find any hardware problems, and Windows Startup Repair didn't find any Windows problems, but it still won't start Windows with all the peripherals attached (i.e. just gives that blinking cursor). However, I believe I have isolated it down to and old USB hub that is one of the peripherals That has 2 USB connections, one to supply power to the hub, and the other for data. When I have that hub connected to the laptop, Windows won't start, but I can connect the hub after Windows is running, with no errors given.

Looks like the problem was an older external hard drive (Maxtor One-Touch) I had connected through that  USB Hub, as once I disconnected that drive from the hub the laptop would boot up into windows fine. Then after Windows started, I tried connecting that drive again but Windows would not recognize it.

This is the same problem except that my unit is a studio 17