Failed To Boot - Resulting In Only A Flashing Underscore
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Edit: I noticed alot of (no file) entries in the hijackthis report.I have some problems that might be related to eachother. -Winlogon and Explorer.exe both crashed a couple of times last few days. Winlogon crashed when I signed off one ofthe accounts (resulting in a reset), explorer.exe crashed while signing i(resulting in a manual reset while frozen). -Today I noticed in the configuration screen, doubleclicking on something there tells me I cannot open it because some other program has it in use. Translated to english, the error msg would be something like: This file is currently in use by another program. As a result I cannot open anything in the configuration menu
I have just had a mate of mine build a pc for me, from scratch, with all new parts. However, for some reason I get a random freezing of the screen resulting in a hard shut down from the Power button. This has happened a few times now, more than twice while in IE6 and once on the desktop. I originally thought it might be IE6 so I have installed IE7 and firefox just to be sure, then it froze while on the desktop straight after i logged in. The PC isn't running hot at all, as I said it froze after I logged in and there is definately no spyware or anything as its a new PC and the only thing i've installed on it is AVG & IE7.
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.
Got the dreaded "Windows failed to boot up. Desperately searching for some way of getting into WinXP Pro but had no success until I tried the following, which I have written for our users: winxp pro on one of my XP machines would not boot into windows. Tried the "usual" steps to boot, including use of the winxp cd and the win boot up floppy. No luck but I was able to get into Safe Mode using the floppy and then hit Start>Run and typed in the run box "msconfig" (without the quote marks). When it opened, I noticed in the the bottom of the window had this Launch System Restore words so I clicked it and was able to restore the computer system to a day before the last restore, let it do it's thing and when it was over, winxp booted up and I was back in business.
The problem is the HD failed. So I put in another HD and reinstalled win XP pro. Everything was fine until this morning. I got up to find it had rebooted in the night and failed to boot up again. I get an error message that says boot failure system security something has failed to initialize due to hardware attatched to your computer is no longer functioning. I've loaded fail safe settings in bios nothing. I thought I'd reinstall windows but once windows starts to boot the keyboard and mouse are no longer recognized. I can't tell it to boot from CD.
I am using Windows XP on my laptop and now when I try to boot it gives me a blank screen and says "application failed to start, and then something about the userinit.exe".
Dell Inspiron 9100, 1 GB mem, 60 GB HD, Win XP Home 2002 SP3. Kept clean with TE Pro, cseraser, syswiper, Adaware, Spybot S&D, AWC V2, Regcure, RegscrubXP. McAfee current. Win XP SP's and updates current.
Boot failed after POST with (as near as I can remember, sorry!) "missing or corrupt HAL.DLL"
This has happened twice. The first time it happened (a year or so ago), I reinstalled XP. I also installed a second installation of Win XP in a WINDOWS2 dir. Set up boot.ini to allow me to select WINDOWS or WINDOWS2 to boot from. Figured this would help if it happened again.
The error I receive when I boot up my MSWINXP Partition instead of let my MacOSX Partition (Which I am currently using to boot and type this message.) after I go threw the basic loading window Originally Posted by FILENAME: WINLOGON.exe The application has failed to start because SHLWAPI.dll was not found. Re-Installing the application may fix this problem. Quote: Originally Posted by FILENAME: Isass.exe The application has failed to start because SHLWAPI.dll was not found. Re-Installing the application may fix this problem. The file names are posted above the quote. As you can odviously see, when I boot up windows after the general boot screen, or the "Loading Screen"
I had Windows Vista in my laptop. I thought of going for XP/Vista Dual Boot. I took XP CD and booted from it and installed XP in my D Drive (Vista was in C Drive). Later on I didn't see XP/Vista Dual Boot option so I modified boot.ini file and though I am able to see Vista option now but still Vista fails to boot. XP is booting fine.
i wanted to dual boot windows 7 with XP. I partitioned my HDD with the built in utility and waited for it to format. I then restarted my computer with the XP disc in the DVD-Drive and waited for it to install on my newly made partition. After it restarted for the first time i got a "Disk read error - Press CTRL + ALT + DEL to restart" and this continues to happen so i cannot get into windows.
Hp laptop running win xp professional going great untill this morning now when trying to boot computer recieve following error message before login screen "isass.exe Security Accounts Manager initialization failed because of the following error:The handle is invalid.Error status 0xc0000008.Please click ok to shutdown this system and re boot into safe mode,check the event log for more detailed information."When ok is clicked unable to get into safe mode same error message appears.
When I try to boot the computer I get the message: Disk Boot Failure, Insert System Disk. I have used the manufacturers (Maxtor) Diagnostic software to check the hard drive. Everything checks out except for the BIOS Extension Support Failed. I have taken the ribbon cables and power cables off the hard drive and reseated them. No difference. I can see everything when I use Bart's PE. I have all the files backed up.
Windows XP a flashing yellow triangle with an exclamation mark in it,
appears in the System Tray. Messages pop up such as "System Notice: Internet Service Provider (ISP) might be tracking your private information! Click the icon the check you ISP for reliability".
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.
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?
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.
Right before I was rebooting my computer yesterday, I got a dll error (i couldn't read the error it flashed to quickly).Since rebooting the taskbar & desktop icon keep flashing on/off. I saw another poster on here that was having a similar problem: http://tinyurl.com/2ahlmh, but I couldn't reply to that post.I ran vundofix, sdfix, combofix, and gmer.
Originally Posted by Cookiegal. It doesn't appear to be malware related so I suggest you start a new thread in the XP forum. I just built a brand new system several months ago with an ASUS Rampage Extreme, Q9650 Quad Core and XP Pro Service Pack 2. It has 2GB of RAM with an ASUS HD4890 video card. I have a bunch of games installed and some graphic utilities but not much more than that. It's mostly used for gaming and graphics. I installed AVAST home edition immediately after the first start up. Configured the system to Classic mode and patched everything up. It has two SATA2.0 320GB drives.
I have this very annoying problem. I have 2 other computers running exact same versions of XP Pro and none do this. I get a constant hard drive led flashing about once a second. I've installed and run "Process Explorer" and slowly went through all and suspended them and it keeps running. I ran an AVAST scan and nothing came up. I've also run every malware detector recommended here and found nothing.I do browse the internet frequently with this computer and I was concerned that I picked up a trojan program but Cookiegal worked with me for quite a bit and said it isn't malware. I'm concerned about what it may be doing to my hard drive though and I would like some help if someone can give it to me. I want to find out what is accessing the hard drive constantly and shut it off if possible or make sure it's not a problem.
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).
My old system hasn't been powered on for about a year. Problem was the onboard video failed replaced it with a video card from another system (riva TNT) and bought some memory system wouldn't boot, determined that the memory was bad Now the system booted but win2K wouldn't work. No problem I have XP now. After multiple error during the xp install I finally got through it.only the computer will only boot in safe mode. Initially thought it was a hardare conflict so I booted in safe mode with networking and systematically cleared all the yellow.