Dell boot up problem

[beachbum74]

My Dell 6000 is having some problems booting up. When I attempt to boot up it goes to the dell boot up page. Then it almost immediately goes to a black blank screen with a flashing cursor in the top left corner. I can't type anything in the cursor and am not able to do anything in this screen. During the dell boot screen I can hit both F2 and F12 but am not able to boot in safe mode by tapping F8. Does anyone have an idea on how to fix my boot up problem? Is my computer just broke? I also tried to reinstall the dell disc by going to the boot up screen (F12) but it just keeps going back to the blank black screen.

[HoustonIT]

It sounds like your Windows install has become corrupted. You should be able to hit f12 on the Dell spash screen and choose the cd/dvd drive option to boot to your restore cd.

[beachbum74]

I tried that as well. Actually I wasn't sure which disk to put in (the Dell disc that came with the computer and my windows XP disc) so I tried both of them and neither worked. Any other suggestions?

[HoustonIT]

The dell disc should be a drivers and diagnostic disc. If this disc doesn't boot when you press f12 at startup and select the cd/dvd drive you may need to run a cd drive cleaning disc through the drive. You should also be paying attention as the system boots because it will say something like "press any key to boot to cd".