blank screen with blinking cursor - NO BOOT

Z

zaphod314

i'm really stuck and could use your help. what happens is this: after
doing a post and bios check and showing the windows boot screen
(contents of boot.ini), my pc goes straight to a blank screeen with a
blinking cursor in the upper left corner. xp doesn't load or anything.
and it won't boot xp from a different hard drive, the cd drive or the
floppy drive. it won't boot xp thru the recovery console either.

it won't boot win 98, win me or even dos from the floppy drive. it
always shows the same blank screen with a blinking cursor.

however, it will load and run the memtest diskette (which doesn't use
any os).

i've even reset the bios but to no avail.

this started happening completely out of the blue. i hadn't installed
any new hardware/software for weeks.

here are the machine details: no-name amd duron 1600, 640 mb, two hard
drives, dvd burner and cd-rom drives, embedded graphics card.
 
R

Ron Sommer

Your post leaves me with several questions.

Can you access the Bios?
What is your boot order?
Is the hard drive being recognized?
How are you getting to Recovery Console?

Assumptions I am making:
the hard drive is being recognized because you are seeing boot.ini contents.
the floppy can boot.

Try disconnecting the second hard drive.
 
Z

zaphod314

thanks for the quick response, ron!

i can access the bios. but the strange thing is after a few keystrokes
while in the bios menus the selected field starts blinking and the
machine stops responding to further keystrokes.

boot order: floppy, cd, hd.
both hard drives and the cd and the dvd drives and the floppy drive are
totally recognized and can at least start the boot process (i see the
message "searching for boot sector... ok")

i get to the recovery console thru the boot menu. however the boot menu
shows up only intermittently.
i tried your suggestion of disconnecting the 2nd hd. no go :-(
 
R

Ron Sommer

Please include the original text in your reply.

I am wondering if this is a power supply issue.
Memtest should run before the drives are powered up.
Accessing the Bios is further along after the devices have been powered up
and detected.
Get a floppy boot disk.
Disconnect the dvd burner and cd-rom drives and the hard drives.
See if the floppy boots to a C: prompt.
 
Z

zaphod314

i tried your suggestion: disconnecting all ide drives and booting from
floppy. still no go :-(
 

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