Blank Screen with Blinking Cursor

[depawl]

Hello:
This is a Compaq Presario SR5130NX, AMD Athlon 64, 1024 M RAM. Running Vista Home Premium. Was working fine a week ago. My niece took it to college and said it started “acting up”, then it wouldn’t start up at all.
When I took a look at it I found that it boots to a blank screen with a blinking cursor in the upper left corner.
Things I have tried so far:
Open case, checked cable connections. Unplugged and reseated hard drive power and SATA cables.
Tried booting into Safe Mode, same thing happens (blank screen with a blinking cursor in the upper left corner).
Booted from Vista DVD (I only have a Vista 32 bit DVD, so I don’t know if these tests are valid or not, since this is a 64 bit edition of Vista).
Tried startup repair. It said that no problems were found.
Tried system restore, and it said that there were no restore points (which is pretty weird, I’m pretty sure that when I looked at this computer last week I created a restore point).
I checked the BIOS and it is recognizing the hard drive, although it list the hard drive as the 3rd drive, and the dvd rom as the 4th dirve (the first and second drives say “None”.).
I verified that the boot order in the BIOS is correct.
Not sure what could be going on. I don’t believe that any new hardware or software has been installed, but who knows.
Any advice or suggestions would be most appreciated.
Thanks.

[dlb]

If the PC was powered up or restarted with an external storage device plugged in to a USB port (like a flash drive or external hard drive; even some printers have media slots for digital camera cards) it may have assigned these devices as hard drives ahead of the hard drive and CD/DVD drive(s). If it was started up several times, it may have moved the system devices even further down the list and may have tried to boot to these devices. This would explain both the boot up problem, and the drives being listed 3rd and 4th. Power down the PC and unplug the power cord. Open the case and clear the BIOS by using the jumper on the motherboard. Then move the jumper back, close the case, plug in and power up. You should get an error about the settings not being correct or something similar. Even if you don't get the error message, enter the BIOS and press the key to install defaults. It's usually F9 or F10, just look around and it should tell you somewhere what to press to install system defaults. Then set the date and time, save the settings, and reboot. Hopefully that will solve the problem.
Good luck! Let us know how it goes!

[dlb]

[depawl]

Update:
I have found a partial solution. I went to HP’s website and found that Recovery Console Command Prompt commands are available in Vista.
I booted from the Vista dvd, system repair, command prompt, and ran the following:
bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /fixmbr
and the system booted up to a Windows update screen that said “Configuring update 3 of 3”. I suspected that this may have had something to do with recent Windows Updates, as I found references to this problem when Googling. I suspect perhaps the system was shutdown during the update?
Anyways I thought I was home free. The login screen came up, I logged on, much to my dismay the system hung for a minute or two at the Welcome screen, then faded to a black screen with only the mouse pointer showing. Strangely enough Ctrl-Alt-Del brings up the screen with “Switch User, Task Manager, Log Off, etc”, but the normal desktop is just black. I cannot get to Task Manager. I can however boot in Safe Mode. No Restore Points are available. I uninstalled the 3 most recent MS updates, no change. I downloaded the latest video driver from NVIDIA’s website, no difference. Last known Good doesn’t work either. At this point I’m at a loss other that trying a complete System Recovery. Any other suggestions would be most appreciated.
Since this is a somewhat different problem, perhaps I should start a new thread?
Thanks.

[depawl]

Update #2:
For some reason, when the Welcome screen fades to the black desktop it reminded me of the secure desktop screen for UAC, hmmmm.....
Just for the heck of it I disabled UAC from Safe Mode, rebooted, and viola, Vista booted right up to my desktop. Can't wait to see what happens when I turn it back on tomorrow.
Obviously this Vist installation has some corruption somewhere, for now if everything remains ok I guess I'll just let my niece take it back to school and hope for the best.
Thanks.

[plodr]

Are you brave enough to run SFC?

Here's how to use the System File Checker:

1. Click the Windows button>> All Programs>> Accessories.
2. Right click the Command Prompt option and then select "Run as administrator" from the resulting menu.
3. With the Command Prompt window showing, type in: sfc /scannow [Enter]
4. You will now receive a message that states the scan will now begin. If SFC should find any rogue files that need to be replaced, you may be asked to insert your Windows CD. If the SFC scans without finding any problems, you will receive the following message: "Windows resource protection did not find any integrity violations".
5. Close the command prompt window.

If you have True Image or Ghost, make an image now that it is working and send your niece back to college with the laptop and the CDs/DVDs so she can "fix" it if it decides to go wonky again.

[depawl]

Plodr:
funny you should ask about sfc. I ran it and it told me that it found some corrupt files that it could not repair. However when I attempted to determine which files as per this procedure:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928228
it doesn't find any member files that need to be repaired.
Any ideas?

[plodr]

Sorry no. I only run linux and windows 2000 so I have no experience using system file checker on Vista.

I wonder if there is some sort of protection you need to turn off so sfc can replace the corrupted files with copies from the CD? Mybe someone who knows Vista well can offer some insight.