blank screen w blinking cursor

Help! Running Windows Vista on Dell Computer (tried to talk to our India buddies, but no help) & HP w 2207 monitor. Monitor was been without color for a long time on the home screen (gray tones only even though you can see color screens as it's powering up), trying to figure that out by troubleshooting and loaded the new version of Norton 360 vs Norton Internet Security because Norton had expired and didn't want a virus. Norton seemed to be working fine, got the updates, did a quick virus scan, then played with the monitor plugs to see if I could hook up a different monitor to see if it was the monitor or hardware/software in the computer. Then the computer locked up and so hit the power button to rebooted it and it asked to repair a problem. Tried to repair it, but now it just powers up with a blank screen and white blinking cursor. I've tried to launch it every possible way, safe mode, F2, F8, repair says no problem found, etc.. Won't launch it even is safe mode, can't even get to a task bar, no restore points. All it does is return it to the dreaded blank screen. I have spent hours looking for answers on the Internet & lots of threads with a blank screen but nothing I tried work. Any suggestions would greatly be appreciated.f

 

Greetings, karine.

Do you have the original Vista disk and/or Dell recovery disks?

Can you access BIOS, change the boot order to 'CD first', and boot to a disk?

 

yes, I have the original Vista disk for the computer, but I put the disk in the dvd drive and powered the computer up, but it's not recognizing the disk and just goes to the blank screen w cursor. I do not have a recovery disk. One thread I read said to change the boot order in the set-up, but I got to the set-up area w F2 and didn't see where I could change that for the dell computer.

 

You should see something like the following:

 

Also, on Dell I think you can hit F12 rather than F2 to choose to boot from CD/DVD as a one time thing if you have trouble finding boot order with F2 settings.

I'll let Caliban work with you on using the Vista disc but wanted to mention while troubleshooting it is best to unplug any unnecessary USB devices other than mouse and keyboard.

 

Ok, all good suggestions. So I unplugged the printer from the computer and tried the F12 to boot from the onboard CD-rom option (I'd only done the normal setting before) with the Windows Vista cd in the drive, but it still went to the blank screen w cursor. I don't get the screens that Caliban has posted. Under my "system set up", it shows 'System, drives, onboard devices, video, performance, security, power mgt, maint and post behavior. So under System expanding the view, it lists: system info, processor info, memory, pci, date/time, boot sequence & HDD boot sequence. And then when you go under boot sequence and expand, it lists: 1. onboard floppy (not present) 2. bootable hard drive 3. Cd-rom then more options but not present. No way that I can see to change the order. I am not seeing your screens? Can you please tell me how to get there. thank you.

 

Usually click on the CD drive then hit+ or the up arrow until CD is at the top.

 

I'm trying to figure out if it is a problem with the CDROM being recognized in BIOS. Is this the original Vista disc branded by DELL?

What is the dell model number? I think a google search of the model number and setup utility should get us a look at the basic screens you are seeing.

 

I have a Dell Dimension C521. It's a microsoft OS disk for Windows Vista that I have. It shipped with the computer. This software was loaded on the computer. I did not have to install it.

 

The screenshots posted above are from generic BIOS menus - they may not correspond with your machine's setup pages, but they should be similar.

Insert the Windows Vista disk into your optical drive. Reboot, and according to the C521 manual, you should press <F12> to access the boot menu.

Note: your mouse is not used in the BIOS setup program.

So, when in the Boot Sequence menu, you should highlight 'CD-Rom' using the '-' or "+' keyboard keys, then use the up or down keys to move the CD-Rom to the top of the list, then click the Enter to save your changes.

Upon restart, you should then be booting to the Vista disk.

 

ok, got the Vista disk to be recognized and tried the repair. It didn't work. So I reloaded the Vista software. Everything powered up to the color desk top. Set up my e-mail account and I'm downloading the updates from windows. Important!, I didn't realize my other software programs and documents files would be taken off the hard drive. It mentioned that it would save the old windows files else where, but I don't see them? I have back-ups of most of the files and the software disks to reload, but is there any recovery of old files, email addresses, emails, etc on the hard drive? Norton 360 did a back up on my external drive right before I had the problem so I should have most of it. Thank you.

 

Was the root drive formatted? If so, the old data is probably lost, unless you wish to delve into forensics procedures.

There is the possibility that Windows backed up, but unless you remember a wizard asking you where to store files, the backup probably did not occur. You might try going into Control Panel > Folder Options > View and checking 'Show hidden files, folders, etc.', and then looking for any folders that may contain backups - but that's a long shot, at best.