Notebook will not boot - blinking cursor

[jhoppe]

I have a Dell C400 notebook that will not boot. The BIOS recognizes the hard drive, but when trying to boot from it, I only get a cursor, no messages no matter how long I wait. What is going on?

 

[geekhelp4u]

have you checked the BIOS to make sure that it is set to boot to HDD first?

Make sure you have no usb drives plugged in.

Try removing the cd drive and see if it boots further

also...

while booting up, pay attention to the number lock, caps lock, and scroll lock lights. Do they blink or turn on in any particular order?

I would also double check the CMOS battery... it might simply need to be replaced

if all else fails - have ypu tried to boot to a cd? Put the xp cd in the cd rom and start tapping F12 when you see the dell logo. Select CD/DVD from the list and see if it will boot into the cd. If it does, chances are you have 1 of 2 problems. Either your HDD is bad, or your boot.ini file is bad.

If it is the boot.ini file, you can repair it using the xp cd.

1. Insert the Microsoft Windows XP CD into the computer. Note: If you have a system recovery CD or restore CD these steps will likely not work for your computer.
2. Reboot the computer with the CD and start tapping F12 when you see the dell logo. Select CD/DVD from the list and the press any key to boot from the CD.
3. Once in the Microsoft Setup menu press R to open the recovery console.
4. Select the operating system you wish to use; if you only have Windows XP on the computer you will only have one prompt.
5. Once prompted for the password enter the Admin password and press enter.
6. Once at the command prompt type bootcfg /rebuild to start the rebuild process.
7. The rebuild process will step you through a number of steps depending upon how many operating systems you have on the computer and how the computer is setup. Below is a listing of the common steps you are likely going to encounter.

* Prompt for the identified versions of Windows installed. When you receive this prompt press Y if the bootcfg command properly identified each of the Windows operating systems installed on the computer. It is important to realize this command will only detect Windows XP, Windows 2000, and Windows NT installations.

* Prompt to enter the load identifier. This is the name of the operating system for the boot.ini. For example, Microsoft Windows XP Home users would enter "Microsoft Windows XP Home edition".

* Prompt to Enter OS load options. When this prompt is received type /fastdetect to automatically detect the available options.

8. Once you have completed all the available options in the rebuild and are back at the prompt type exit to reboot the computer.

 

[jhoppe]

I put the hard drive in a tower, and it did the same blinking cursor. I ran the Hitachi scan on the drive...it all checks out as a good drive. So at this point, I've got all of the data off, I am going to wipe it and install windows with that one trick of putting the bootable MS-DOS files and the XP i386 directory on it and see what happens...

(it has no external drives and no usb boot option)

Thanks for the reply!!

 

[Bullfighter]

Sounds like a simple corrupted MBR, boot to bartPE (or recovery console) and run fixmbr:
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/termsf/p/fixmbr.htm

...assuming you are running XP

EP

 

[Comtech Solutions]

I think I'd try replacing the cmos battery before I reinstalled Windows.

But if you want, try a repair install/fix MBR before the effort it takes to backup data and reinstall.

My 2 cents.....

 

[jhoppe]

Now this is getting strange....it will NOT boot from the HDD, an external USB floppy, etc. It WILL boot from the network, but that does not help much if it cannot talk to the floppy at all.

I tried to get it to boot from the hard drive, but creating a partition and formatting it in a 15GB FAT32 partition and then throwing all of the MSDOS boot files onto the partition along with the XP i386 directory, but nothing.

Any idea why not even the floppy would be bootable? It is definately set to boot from the floppy in the BIOS...?

 

[Bullfighter]

Does it even try to boot from the floppy (i.e. does the light go on the floppy drive and spin the disk) or does it skip right over it?

If it is trying to boot from the floppy and doesn't, try a different disk - if it doesn't even try do you know if the drive is functioning?

EP

 

[Flyingbull]

Now this is getting strange....it will NOT boot from the HDD, an external USB floppy, etc. It WILL boot from the network, but that does not help much if it cannot talk to the floppy at all.

I tried to get it to boot from the hard drive, but creating a partition and formatting it in a 15GB FAT32 partition and then throwing all of the MSDOS boot files onto the partition along with the XP i386 directory, but nothing.

Any idea why not even the floppy would be bootable? It is definately set to boot from the floppy in the BIOS...?

Sounds like a winbook, just toss it in the air a few times, FM always works with those pieces of crap.

 

[PcTestCard.com]

I agreed that the HDD Mbr maybe corrupted.

Try reset the mainboard Bios and run the above bartPE to fix the MBR.

Besides, I used to have a laptop with similar problem, the question is not the HDD but the RAM, use other known good RAM see the XP logo.
Why not swap the RAM in different slot and see if that helps!

Hope this helps!
Bill

 

[jhoppe]

No, it will not even boot from the external floppy. The bios does NOT recognize the floppy either...