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Join Date: Aug 2003
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I am trying to fix a computer for a friend. I have gotten different stories either it was hit by lightening or virus. I am pretty computer savvy but I have no clue on this one.
When you turn it on everything appears to be right. The Compaq comes across the screen and then it goes to a black screen with the cursor. Does not let you type anything. Does anyone have any ideas? I have switched out the hard drive and that did not work. The fan is running and the cdrom drive is running.
Please help.
When you turn it on everything appears to be right. The Compaq comes across the screen and then it goes to a black screen with the cursor. Does not let you type anything. Does anyone have any ideas? I have switched out the hard drive and that did not work. The fan is running and the cdrom drive is running.
Please help.
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Join Date: Feb 2002
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What type of cursor is it? Is it the Microsoft Windows cursor indicating that Windows is trying to load? Try booting to a DOS floppy and see if you have access to the C:\ drive.
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Join Date: May 2003
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Originally Posted by honestgirl33523
When you turn it on everything appears to be right. The Compaq comes across the screen and then it goes to a black screen with the cursor. Does not let you type anything. Does anyone have any ideas? I have switched out the hard drive and that did not work. The fan is running and the cdrom drive is running.
If the hard drive makes no difference, it may be a corrupt or mis-set BIOS. Use the jumper to do a BIOS reset and then restore the settings as needed. BIOS settings can be corrupted by a power surge or EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) induced by a nearby lightning strike. The BIOS code itself may even have been damaged; the flash memory used for BIOS storage is rather sensitive.
Last edited by TallCool1 : Aug 30th, 2003 at 11:53 pm.
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Originally Posted by cscgal
What type of cursor is it? Is it the Microsoft Windows cursor indicating that Windows is trying to load? Try booting to a DOS floppy and see if you have access to the C:\ drive.
The cursor is the type that would let you type but nothing happens. The computer starts up and the compaq logo comes across the screen and that is as far as it goes. I did try the boot up floppy disk and nothing different happened.
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Originally Posted by TallCool1
What happens when you boot from a floppy or a bootable CD like Knoppix?
If the hard drive makes no difference, it may be a corrupt or mis-set BIOS. Use the jumper to do a BIOS reset and then restore the settings as needed. BIOS settings can be corrupted by a power surge or EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) induced by a nearby lightning strike. The BIOS code itself may even have been damaged; the flash memory used for BIOS storage is rather sensitive.
Thanks for the help. This is alittle more than I am familiar with. I am using this as a learning experience. Where is the jumper and how do I reset the Bios. It sounds like this might be the problem as it happened while we were having a storm.
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Re: Problems with booting up [quote=cscgal]What type of cursor is it? Is it the Microsoft Windows cursor indicating that Windows is trying to load? Try booting to a DOS floppy and see if you have access to the C:\ drive. so what is the solutionfor this problem
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