Blank Screen Blinking Underline / Flashing Underscore At Boot
Feb 3, 2010
Just wanted to give a solution for an issue that I had on a Dell Optiplex GX270, where it was having problems hanging when a couple of peripheral USB items were plugged in. After I had installed an HP printer, I plugged in an 8Gb thumb drive. It would hang for a very long time until I finally had to reboot. When it went through the short Dell setup screen, it just went black with a flashing underline in the top left corner instead of going to the first Windows startup screen. The funny thing is that I would unplug the HP printer's USB cable while the computer was still powered, and it would immediately start Windows. Through several different test cycles I found that A) Leaving the printer USB cable plugged in during a restart brought up the blank screen w/flashing underscore. B) Not connecting the printer USB cable during a restart brought Windows up properly. That told me that there was a problem with BIOS. I went to the Dell website and flashed my BIOS with the latest update for my computer. That resolved the issue immediately.Hope this helps others resolve similar problems, because it seemed like there
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Jun 24, 2008
The unit has an HP mainboard 800mhz, a P4 2.6Ghz processor, 300Watt PSU, and all was well until until I actually attached a known good XP HDD to the otherwise completed system. It failed to boot, resulting in only a flashing underscore after the HP/P4 boot screen, no beeps. Same thing happens if I try to boot from an XP CD
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Feb 8, 2005
I was working on my friend's computer and I had to switch the hard drive over to his new computer to try and get it to work on the new computer. It didn't work, so I tried to put the harddrive back in its original computer and now I have a problem. When I try to start up the computer, everything runs fine through the POST and then, before it goes to the Windows screen with the little bar that goes sideways, it stops on a black screen with the blinking underscore (_). I've restarted it many many times and it all ends up the same, stopping at the flashing underscore. I've tried to boot to a Win 98 boot floppy to get it to the command prompt but I get an error saying that it is the incorrect disk. I've also tried to reset the bios by taking the battery out for a while. It reset the bios good and all but I still got the same problem. I think it has to do with the MBR cause I know the harddrive works (as a slave in another computer) and I know the RAM is new. I don't think those are the problems because before I put the harddrive in the new computer to try and boot off it, it worked fine. I can't get into the start up menu either by pressing F8. The only thing I can think of that might work that I haven't tried is to boot off the XP cd and do the recovery console thing. Unless I know that it will abosolutely fix it, I'd like to stray away from it. If you think otherwise, I'll gladly try it. I think I had a problem like this before and I got past it somehow, but I don't remember how I did it.
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Sep 9, 2009
i have ONE hard drive with partitions. I had a really bad setup first, I had 1 partition with 3 windows installs on it, folders like WINDOWS, WINPRO, WINN, I never took the time to delete them or whatever, and I was using winpro as my main OS. When I was running the above setup, when I boot up it would ask me: Select what OS to load Windows Pro, Windows Home, Windows Home
I decieded to install Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit, worked flawlessy, but I wanted to go back to windows xp pro 64 bit. So I made a new partition and installed windows XP pro 64 bit onto it. when I tried installing windows xp with my CD, the first part would work fine, but then when it restarted to continue the setup, it would load my MOBO logo and then after, it would just show a blinking underscore "_" on the top left corner, and nothing else.
I managed to install a fresh windows xp from my USB flash drive, but when booting up normally it still does not let me select what OS to log on to, it just shows the blinking underscore in the top left after the MOBO logo passes, I actually have to boot by USB drive to boot this fresh install of windows. I think something is wrong with my boot loader, but have no idea how to fix it.
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Jul 10, 2007
When I turn my computer on it goes to the blue hp logo and then to a blank screen with a blinking cursor in the top left corner. If I hit f8 when booting it gives me 2 options...f1 to setup and f2 to resume. It won't let me go into safe mode or anything. I have tried booting from the xp cd, but nothing happens. I have tried replacing the battery and that hasn't done anything. It started when trying to open a program, the computer just went blank. When trying to reboot, this mess started.Also, I just got this error message, which is new.i got it after I unplugged the computer for awhile.. warning 251: system cmos checksum bad dafalut config used
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Mar 22, 2010
This is my first post on this site, I know that there have been posts on this topic becfore, however mine is different than the rest of the posts. In the other posts,this has occured on a modified computer, but when it happened to me, it was my unmodded computer. So heres what happened. I boot up, and after the HP screen, instead of going to the windows loading screen, I get a message with alot of text, but the main point was that "a failure was imenent", F1 to continue, F2 to enter setup. So i hit F1 to continue, and after a minute of a blank screen and the blinking text dash, the DISK BOOT FAIlURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK message. But I have never modified my coputer, and never used a setup disk before on this machine. BTW:I tried resetting BIOS, but to no avail.
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Jan 15, 2007
One of my computers started having somwhat an erratic behaviour so i formatted it and reinstalled windows. The erratic behaviour (such as firing "invalid/corrupt file" at me all the time, and rebooting spontaneously) didn't stop, so i tried mounting the HDD in another computer and do the whole thing again.It went fine, and i got all the security updates, installed all my programs.When I plugged it back into it original place, windows won't load (not even in sec mode) - all i see is a white underscore blinking on the top left corner.Can you guys help? Father Google doesn't seem to have an answer for me.
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Dec 24, 2007
when he turns it on, it shows the HP logo with the F1 for Setup and such, then it goes straight to a blank screen with a cursor flashing. it's a boot sector problem. I just need to get him booted up so I can do some scans.
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Mar 26, 2005
I just came back from vacation and turned on my other computer only to find that right after it flashed the "Dell" screen, it showed a blank screen with random letters/numbers flashing in green. It just freezes there.
It's possible that someone else was on it and may have messed it up but I'm not sure. I'm hoping its still salvageable.
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Jul 25, 2010
When I try to start up my machine, the Dell boot screen with the F2 and F12 options appear, but instead of moving on to the Windows XP loading screen, it simply shows a black screen with a blinking cursor in the top left. I cannot type anything with this cursor. There is clearly something wrong with the boot procedure or, I think, with my hard drive. The hard drive (160gb) is new and has been working well since February.I'm using a Dell Inspiron 9300 laptop. I've run Diagnostics with no errors, booted from XP CD to try bootcfg /rebuild, fixboot & fixmbr, and the lengthy chkdsk /r, all to no avail. I've even tried replacing two NTLDR files by copying them from the XP CD. Nothing has worked; I still have a black screen with a flashing cursor when my HDD should be loading. I've tried removing and reinserting the HDD itself, also to no avail. I haven't yet opened the case up to try to see if there's anything to clean or any botched connections, but I don't see how something like that would have happened on its own. All of my components (RAM, HDD, Video Card, Processor, etc.) seem to be recognized in the BIOS menu.
I should note that when I run chkdsk /r, the progress quickly gets to 25%, slows down and takes a while to get to 51%, and then slows down even more and takes maybe two or three hours to complete. I also notice that the progress advances to about 65% sometimes and then returns to 50% again. I've run chkdsk several times now and there's been no improvement in the startup.I realize I could simply reformat and reinstall Windows, but I have a lot of very important data and work stored on my drive that I hadn't had a chance to backup to my external drive. Please let me know if there's a way I can get the startup to work so that I can access my files again.
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Dec 5, 2006
I have two HDD. In the 1st one XP and Ubuntu and in the 2nd one FC5. Suddenly the XP is not booting. As I choose XP from boot loader [I use Acronis Boot Manager] it is giving me a blank screen with the cursor blinking at the top left corner. Just that no movement, no XP logo nothing.
I tried fixmbr, fixboot and chkdsk; but in vein. sfc scannow is not supported. Fixmbr and fixboot succeeded but it is giving me the same result. I reinstalled FC5's Grub in the hdb5 [location of FC5's installation] but it does not give me boot option. I then reinstalled FC5's grub in hda1 and atleast now I can access net and look for immediate help from you. I know reinstalation is the last option but I just don't want to do that unless I do not have any more avenues left.
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Aug 4, 2008
I have an Intel DG31PR with 1 GB memory and Windows XP Home. When I turn the computer on the Intel logo and BIOS 2 settings appear then the screen goes back with a flashing cursor at the top left of the screen . I have to reboot several times before I can login. How do I stop this from happening?
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Jun 20, 2008
When i turn on,first Windows screen appears,then a blue screen blinks,then hp screen,then a blank page with cursor on the top left,then a screen with the message"we apologise for the inconvinience but Windows did not start successfully.there was a hardware or software problem.I tried to run it in Safe mode, Windows normally,last known configuration but no luck......Then someone suggested to Get into the Recovery Console by making a Recovery CD with ISO image but the machine is not responding to any of it.Is it with CD/DVD ROM drive or any major hardware problem???...I ran a self hard drive test and it seemed fine
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Sep 21, 2006
Yesterday I was on my computer,I downloaded a codec,and afterwards I got a flashing yellow triangle and blue/red flashing circle on my bottom taskbar.I have ad subtract which is suppose to stop popups.Now I keep getting a popup from the triangle that says(System Alert:Trojan-Spy.Win32@mx and by the circle I get(System Alert popup)And Ads-Virusburst.com,The Spyguard.com,Malware Wipe.com and a ISA Monitor.exe,What the heck is going on?I went to my control panel and uninstalled everything that was downloaded in the last couple of days.I click the x on popups to close,and 30 seconds they come right back.Tried a system restore,and will not work.Any suggestions?Never had any problems in the past.
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Jun 9, 2010
I have been having a boot up issue on my compaq presario sr1630nx. When I turn on the computer now it takes me to the boot screen where I press F2 and the little dash up in the corner flashes for a second or two...disapears...and then nothing...black screen. I then have to turn the computer off manually but when I turn the computer on again and it goes to the boot screen and I press F2 again and it takes me to the default start windows normally prompt.
I hit enter and then it boots up like normal and everything is fine with the world and my computer runs just fine until the next time I turn it off and have to turn it on again. Same routine at every boot. Was wondering if the brown out may have corrupted my boot.ini file somehow and if so how to fix it. My computer was on when the power spiked twice in a two minute period then was off for a couple of hours so it could be a hardware issue as well. I have Windows xp home edition
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Apr 1, 2005
I am getting a blank screen with a white pointer when I boot up my machine. And when I try to boot up safe mode it does the same thing only with safe mode written in the four corners. Could someone please tell me what is going on.
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Aug 23, 2005
I have windows xp prof running and now when i turn on the computer it boots up, goes to the logo, and then the screen goes blank. The hard drive is still working, and i can go into safemode (f8) but every time i try to startup normally the screen just goes blank, the monitor says there is no signal. I have no clue how to go about resolving this.
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May 11, 2007
I have a computer I have built and upgraded several times for my step-son. The issue I am having is after startup or a reboot the computer goes through post and then I get a blank screen for 10-15 seconds. Then I get a serrated white load bar that runs the length of the screen at the bottom it takes about 3-5 minutes to load. Then I get the Windows load screen which takes about 10-15 seconds and then I get the account icons and everything is fine. I am not sure what this white load bar is from and it is really slowing down the boot times. The computer has gone through an upgrade and the issue still persists, which I expected. I upgraded the motherboard, processor, and video card.
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Jul 27, 2007
I am using a custom built PC with retail bought Win XP SP2 installed.The PC is about 3 months old now and has run perfectly so far with 2 hard drives and 1 install of XP on the master drive (S-ATA). I redecorated the house and this resulted in the PC being unplugged for about 2 weeks. Havin just plugged it back in and tried to start it, I am getting through the POST stage and then I just get a blank screen with a flashing line at the top left. This used to happen with boot up but disappeared after about five seconds. This one just stays flshing forever.I was wondering if anyone would have any advice for me. If I haven't given any required details please ask and I will post them ASAP.
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May 9, 2005
computer that won't boot up. I have an E-Machines T2825 running Windows XP Home Ed. that crashed after loading a wireless router and System Mechanic program on it. We bought another E-Machines computer (T6212) I networked the 2 with a Linksys Wireless - G Broadband Router. After that I loaded System Mechanic5 on both computers. After running a scan on the T2825, it told me that the hard drive needed to be de-fragged so I did it. Then, few days later, the T2825 started having problems when running programs on it. It would freeze up and the only way to shut it down was to disconnect the main power. After plugging it back in and turning the power on, it froze up just trying to open IE6.
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Jan 22, 2008
When I turn on my lap top, Acer Travelmate 2355LC, there are a couple of quiet clicks, then nothing. If left for about 10 minutes, it starts up normaly. Sometimes it starts normally from the beginning.It has an Intel Celron M360 processor (1.4 GHz, 400 MHz FSB, 1MB L2 cache) 40 BG HDD 256MB DDR, I've cleaned everything up. Should I try and repair? I would like to avoid reformatting if possible.
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Aug 6, 2007
A friend of mine called me to his house to take a look at his gateway. All I know is that it runs Windows XP.He states that AVG antivirus prompted him to restart his computer once the virus definitions update completed. Once he restarted, a blank screen appeared and said, "Invalid Boot Disk, please insert in drive a:"Problem is, there is no disks in any drive.
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Aug 19, 2007
My comp is acting weird so i decided to either repair windows or reinstall windows, but after it says press any key to boot from cd, and i press a key, i get a blank screen or it loads windows.
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Oct 20, 2009
Dell inspiron 510 laptop starts with dell logo XP logo and moving bar below then grey blank screen instead of users names only blank screen with moveable cursir used yesterday as normal except i did defrag
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Aug 8, 2007
I cloned the 40 GB original HDD, IDE, to an IDE 80 GB HDD using Acronis True Image 8.Cloning took 9 hours.Original HDD was in the Net Vista. Destination HDD attached via USB 2.I had tried using Norton Ghost 2003, but the cloning did not progress. Now, trying to boot to the cloned HDD, the system stalls, before Windows XP Splash screen, with a flashing cursor in the upper left corner.Jumper on original HDD is set to master. Jumper on Destination HDD is set to master. I booted using my Win XP Home CD, but the "R" option was not available. Windows XP Home Edition Setup "If one of the following Windows XP installations is damaged, setup can try to repair it". Now select the operating system you wish to repair, if as in most occasions there is only one, the just press "R" to continue.
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Jun 30, 2008
I'm hoping some can offer some advice on this rather troublesome problem.I have a Dell laptop that was recently formatted, XP Home was re-installed from the original Dell ReInstallation CDs.Everything has been working perfectly for the past month. However, this past weekend, we're now unable to boot into Windows.
When powering the machine on, the Dell logo appears as normal. When the Dell logo disappears,instead of the Windows splash screen appearing, a flashing cursor appears in the upper left hand corner. Nothing else. After letting the machine sit for approximately 30-minutes, an error message never appears.
I've already attempted a few things Removed the drive, attached it to a working computer via USB adapter. There, I performed a scan disk. No error messages appear. Placed the hard drive back into the Dell laptop. Inserted the Windows XP ReInstallation CD to access the recovery console. FIXMBR completed successfully, however the problem continues Verified that the system BIOS recognizes the drive and correct drive size/parameters.I really don't know what to do. Apparently the repair install function is not available with the Dell OS ReInstallation CD. Can someone throw a hint or two? I'm almost out of gas on this one and need to have it running again ASAP.
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Oct 13, 2005
My screen keeps flashing and changing colour to a dark horrible colour, It's been doing this for a while but lately seems to be doing it more often and wont change back to what it should be like. Any idea's what the problem could be?
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Aug 2, 2009
Machines were running fine until someone took out a power pole down the road.When power resumed, powered my machines back up. 2 out of 3 did OK. The third goes immediately to a black screen with a flashing cursor in the upper corner.Have already:
1 removed and reseated the power and data cables from the hard drive
2 removed and reseated the RAM modules
3 tried pressing every F key on the keyboard
4 Cntl-Alt-Delete doesn't work either
5 tried on another monitor.
Don't even get to Windows splash screen or able to get to Safe Mode.
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Oct 4, 2006
Anytime i go to watch a movie, it flashes black real quick before it starts and then again after i close it.Any idea why? (ATI Mobility x1300 video card, and latest catalyst drivers).
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Oct 7, 2006
My computer will not boot up. It gets to a certian point and sits there flashing an underscore in the top, left hand corner of the screen. It has done this before, like it stalled on start up and I would just restart it and it would finish booting but that isn't working. I'm using XP Professional...
I installed a software last night on my computer to allow me to transfer images and stuff to my cell phone (motorolla product). When I was installing it a box or something appeared saying it was suddenly missing files and it wanted me to put in the Service pack 2 disk - which I didn't have. My only guess is that is what caused this problem. I have not saved anything yet (was going to do that tomarrow on my only day off)
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May 4, 2010
DELL XPS 410 XPSP2 - system will not boot past the blinking cursor in the corner. I can't get to the BIOS and the PC will not boot from CD. I have tried to hit F1, F2, F8 andF12 at startup to no avail. I replaced the Video card with a known good card, still no luck.I tried the unplug/plug method for the I/O panel with no changes.The fans are working correctly, so I don't think it was an overheating issue and the power supply is up and running.
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