Hi, I have a problem with my Compaq Presario 2100 laptop I was hoping someoen could help me with. When I press the power button, the compaq logo appears and it goes through the POST. Then just before the "starting windows" message is supposed to appear, the screen goes blank (except for a flashing cursor in the top left). Then it stays blank no matter how long I leave it like that.

I thought it was a problem with the hadr drive or the OS boot files became corrupt so I went into the bios, set the floppy as the first boot device, and tried booting with a bootable floppy. The laptop read the floppy for a few seconds, then the same thing happened, the screen went blank and it hung. I know the floppy works fine because I can use it to boot my desktop.

I emailed Compaq for tech support and the person told me to go into the bios and load the default settings (which I did and didn't solve my problem), and if that didn't work to use the recovery CD's (which I can't do because the laptop won't boot from the CD's either, just like it won't boot from the floppy or hd, besides I don't think this is a OS/software issue so I don't see why they suggested to use the recovery CD's).

I've had the laptop for about a year now and it's worked flawlessly until now. I can't think of anythign I did that could've caused this problem. It's never been dropped or handled roughly, I didn't install any new hardware/software, etc.

I'm willing to try anything although I would really not want to ship it to Compaq for them to repair because my warantee has run out and not to mention the shipping costs from my country would be astronomical.

If anyone has any advice I'm all ears. I have moderate PC-repairing skills but have no experience repairing laptops.

Since you do have a flashing cursor something is working for it to still be flashing and not frozen.

I would try pulling the Hard drive out of the unit and then booting to your floppy...

If you have a bootable 98 CD I would try that...

Can you still hear the cooling fan?
Spinning free?

Still early here but those are quick and easy to try..

Must find coffee... Soon...

I just tried booting again and it booted right into windows! I rebooted several times and it booted up every time. Everythign works perfectly, nothing on the hard drive is corrupt. I am baffled. I am relieved but I still wish I knew what caused the problem in case it happens again.

Haha, another case of an irritating computer ghost

Nice you solved your problem.

Santa knows who has been naughty or nice...

it's the belated y2k3 bug :p

Atleast it's another fine puzzle solved by the Daniweb forum members!