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Aug 30th, 2003
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Problems with booting up

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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.
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Re: Problems with booting up

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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Re: Problems with booting up

Quote 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.
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.
Last edited by TallCool1; Aug 30th, 2003 at 11:53 pm.
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Re: Re: Problems with booting up

Quote 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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Re: Re: Problems with booting up

Quote 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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vini_sh is offline Offline
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not to sure if this is still going...

is there a network cable or usb plug and play device connected? because if the computer is set to boot from memory pen then it wont load so ya gota unplug it and try again.
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Re: Problems with booting up
Hi Can you go into safe mode? if not try your installation disk,(make a restore disk if possible if you do not have the original disks. if it is vista it has a repair option
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Re: Problems with booting up
Click to Expand / Collapse  Quote originally posted by cypher1 ...
Hi Can you go into safe mode? if not try your installation disk,(make a restore disk if possible if you do not have the original disks. if it is vista it has a repair option
last poster who asked for help in this thread was over 7 yrs ago ,check the dates
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Re: Problems with booting up
d'oh
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cypher1 is offline Offline
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This thread is more than three months old

No one has posted to this discussion for at least three months. Please let old threads die and do not reply to them unless you feel you have something new and valuable to contribute that absolutely must be added to make the discussion complete. Otherwise, please start a new thread in this forum instead.
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