Computer wont start/boot

[dino_martini]

So we have another computer, and when we turn it on. It shows the Dell Logo and has the whole Press F2 for Boot Menu, F12 for Bios or what ever. Once it gets past that screen, all we get is a blinking _ in the top left corner of the screen. Anyone have any ideas? I know thats a pretty terrible description, but if you need more info ask. I honestly have no idea what Im looking for or what to do.

Help Please!

[GQBalla]

have you recently done anything to this computerÉ

-add new hardware or install anythingÉ

- first i reseat and double check everything

[Spoons]

Originally posted by GQBalla
have you recently done anything to this computerÉ

-add new hardware or install anythingÉ

- first i reseat and double check everything

And in GQ's case, change your keyboard from multilingual to US.

But yeah, double check any hardware you just installed, or all hardware to check if the connects are solid.

Run a memory test and harddrive test. You can get programs that run (you'll need another computer to burn the disks) at startup, but I am doubting this is your problem.

[GQBalla]

Originally posted by Spoons


And in GQ's case, change your keyboard from multilingual to US.

But yeah, double check any hardware you just installed, or all hardware to check if the connects are solid.

Run a memory test and harddrive test. You can get programs that run (you'll need another computer to burn the disks) at startup, but I am doubting this is your problem.

ahah sorry for the question mark its this stupid vista bug i keep getting

[Rstar]

i got that question mark/funny e problem in xp, but only when i was playing wow. haha

One idea is to make sure everything on the Motherboard is in tight

[Doozer]

It's probably not detecting your primary boot hard drive. It's happened to me several times. The last time was when the machine rebooted automatically after a forced Windows update.

What I've noticed is that some Windows updates (assuming you have XP) seem to have an issue with randomly changing the order of the boot drives, and it seems to only happen if you have external USB storage. For some reason the primary boot drive is changed, and in my case it was changed to the external USB storage drive, which is not a boot drive.

I just went into the BIOS and reset the boot order, and it was fine after that.

[dino_martini]

When you say 'reset the boot order'...I dont see an option to reset, but it gives me an option to boot the different drives in any order I like. But I have to set the order.


Edit - when I first turned on the computer this morning I get a page that says

'Diskette drive 0 Seek Failure

Press F1 to something Press F2 to enter setup'

[Doozer]

Yes, sorry. When I say reset the boot order, I don't mean that there's some "auto reset" or something. You need to know which of your physical hard drives (assuming you have several) has your boot drive. Set that to be the first disk that it checks (although you can usually still have it check the cd drive first).