black screen with blinking cursor - vista

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by SweetLD215, Oct 6, 2010.

  1. SweetLD215

    SweetLD215 Private E-2

    Hi there,

    I did not think I'd be back on this forum so soon. You guys are awesome on here and helped me fix a virus fairly recently so I know my system is clean. I have:

    Windows Vista
    Running on 32 bit Operating System
    Intel Core 2 Duo CPU E6550 @ 2.33 GHz (if any of that is helpful)

    I don't know if that's helpful, but thought I'd post it. So I turned my computer on this morning, checked my Facebook and the weather. I closed the browser and walked away. Then I remembered I needed to look at something so I went back and clicked Firefox. Sometimes it doesn't load if I don't hit Run As Administrator so I just clicked IE instead from my shortcut on the bottom bar of the screen. Well, the computer started making a funny noise - kind of like the ticking of a clock. It loaded IE to my homepage, but froze and wouldn't let me click anything. Then it gave me a script error of some sort for Firefox. I tried to cancel but it seemed to only anger my computer and it wouldn't let me do anything but move my mouse. I tried Ctrl+Alt+Delete and nothing happened. Then I got an Authentication Failure where my only choice was to click ok. I did. The system choked up but I left it alone. Eventually I got my Windows screen back, but then I couldn't get into IE or Firefox. It still had the weird ticking sound. I tried to shut down, but everything I did only made it choke up like it was trying to freeze. Eventually I got it to log me off as the user to the blue screen like the computer is locked. I knew if I went back in, the whole thing might freeze so from there, I selected to shut down.

    The system tried and tried to shut down, but never would get there. I gave it over 20 minutes, trying to wait for a shut down that never happened. It got to the blue screen stating shutting down, but would not go past it. Finally, I turned it off by pressing the button on the CPU. I tried to turn it back on. It loads the main black screen that says Dell, but the drops me to a black screen with a blinking cursor at the top. I tried hitting F8 at the Dell screen but nothing happens. It just drops me to that same black screen with the blinking cursor.

    This has happened to me before and I got it fixed, but I'm hoping that this might be something I can do myself.
    Please help me! I take classes online and need my computer back as we are in our last week. Is there anything I can do?

    Thank you!
     
  2. SweetLD215

    SweetLD215 Private E-2

    Oh I should have mentioned, I reviewed the similiar cases, but it doesn't look like it was solved in those instances (unless I don't understand something).

    Please help, I'm desperate to fix it.
     
  3. Caliban

    Caliban I don't need no steenkin' title!

    Greetings, SweetLD215.

    Just read through your recent Malware thread - was a pleasure to watch y'all work together. ;)

    The clicking sound could indicate impending hard drive failure. I would strongly suggest backing up any important data to an external device asap.

    Meanwhile, log in as an administrator, click Start, Computer, right click on your root drive, click Properties - in the Tools tab, click 'Check now...' in the Error-checking section.

    Let that run, report back with the results, and we'll go from there.
     
  4. SweetLD215

    SweetLD215 Private E-2

    Hi Caliban,

    Thanks so much for responding! Yes, the person helping me through the malware was absolutely amazing and patient!
    This might be a silly question, but how do I get the computer to actually start up so I can follow those steps? I tried hitting F8 to go to safe mode, but it doesn't work.

    I am praying it isn't hard drive failure or... if it is that I can go rescue my important stuff before it dies.
     
  5. Caliban

    Caliban I don't need no steenkin' title!

    Ah, sorry.

    Do you have a valid Windows disk or OEM recovery disk? If so, set your boot order to 'CD first', and boot to the CD. If that's possible, select the 'Repair your computer' option - a good tutorial is located here.

    If you don't have a disk, or if the above fails, let us know.
     
  6. SweetLD215

    SweetLD215 Private E-2

    Hi there,

    I'll look around to see if I can find the CD. I'm not sure if I have one. If I do find it, will it erase all my stuff by booting up this way?
     
  7. Caliban

    Caliban I don't need no steenkin' title!

    The Repair option shouldn't affect your files.

    However, if you have important data on the machine that you feel should be saved, you might consider creating a live Linux disk so you can try to salvage your files in case of machine failure. One of the easier distros is Linux Mint - the procedure would be to download the 32-bit version, burn that file as an .iso to a CD, and boot to that disk, creating a live environment from which you can manipulate your data.

    Do try to find your Vista disk, though.
     
  8. Caliban

    Caliban I don't need no steenkin' title!

    If you do have the ability to download .iso files and burn them to disk, download UBCD - it contains good startup utilities that we can help you with.
     

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