I need some help with a problem that has been bothering me. Whenever I turn my PC on, after the screen where the BIOS is accessible, I get a black screen with a blinking cursor on the top left. From here, I am not able to do anything - cant boot from a CD and the OS doesnt load.

I have, however, found a way to work around this problem. I noticed that if I leave my PC off for long enough - a few hours - the problem goes away and Windows XP loads fine.

What Im trying to figure out is why. It seems more like a hardware issue to me. Why is it that if I keep the PC off long enough, it works just fine? Is it overheating? Or something to do with electricity discharging? Could it be the HDD? Help, please. Any would be great. Thanks

Have you tried putting your HD in the freezer for half an hour? It might be that it's overheating after a while.

I have the same problem - at first I thouht it was my HDs being too hot, but then it won't boot when cold either (I left it off overnight, still had the problem)
Anyone can help on that?
Use something like SpeedFan to monitor temperatures - one of my HDs has a temp. sensor in it, to tell me how hot it is. This might give u a clue