Blinking Cursor on XP Startup

[FCBarca]

The computer will not boot up....It shows the startup screen of 'Gateway' and allows me to go into setup, if I want, but then goes to a blank screen with a blinking cursor in the upper left corner instead of a Windows XP screen...I have tried restarting several times and I get the same thing...What's going on and what can I do now?

I have a PIII 650 Mhz machine with 512 MB RAM running Windows XP Professional SP1.

I had recently been having problems where Windows XP was not recognizing my 2nd hard drive consistently on startup (Intermittently, it would recognize it) that it had been recognizing for 2 years....The problem started after I had shipped the CPU during a move.

[timekeeper]

Sounds like a hard drive physical connection problem, try poking around your PC case and make sure the IDE and power cables to the hard disk is secure.



Cheers,

[snowmonkey]

Well, as long as you see something on the screen tells us you system in partially alive (duhhh), anyway, open up the said panel and remove the second hard drive from the computer or at least un-plug it, also make sure your video card, network card, sound card and Ram is sitting properly (push them down on to the motherboard), also make sure all the cables are secure and tight.. give that a try.


cheers

[lostchris08]

I have had this blinking cursor problem for a while. The only solution that has worked is to reformat. Does anyone know a way to reduce the risk of a blinking cursor on the XP startup to occur? I remember I installed Microsoft Power Point out of all things and it told me to restart. When I restarted, I got the infamous blinking cursor.

Also, I have some important information on my internal hard drive. Is there a way to transfer that data before I reformat? I know there is a way to change my internal hard drive to an external, however, is there a more efficient way?

Thanks for the help.

Chris