After post, black screen, blinking cursor

onewolfe · Feb 11, 2011

Hello!

Vista SP1
2gb ram
Asus M50vm
nvidia 9600gs

After a normal shutdown my laptop no longer boots. It posts fine, then displays a black screen with a flashing cursor in the upper left of the screen.

So far I have done the following with the Vista Restore Disk:

-Pulled up a command prompt and verified that my files are intact on the HDD

-Run the Vista diagnostic

-Used system restore to rollback to an earlier restore point

None of the above had any noticable effect. I will attempt to reinstall Vista later, but beyond that I am unsure what else to try.

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks!

i MaRk i · Feb 11, 2011

Hi-

From the command prompt type

Code:

bootrec.exe /fixMBR

See if that helps, also is the BIOS set to boot from the HDD?

Regards,

Mark

onewolfe · Feb 11, 2011

Will try that commamd shortly, thanks. I tried booting with the HDD first, but no dice.

onewolfe · Feb 12, 2011

YES!

/fixMBR did the trick.

So it was my master boot record I'm assuming, which makes sense all things considered.

Thanks for the help!!!!

i MaRk i · Feb 13, 2011

Hi-

Glad that worked for you.

One thing is that a corrupt MBR usually forms from either messing around with it (through programs, or installing other OSs) or through a problem with the hard drive. So I would recommend running a test on the hard drive to make sure it is ok.

Hard Drive Test

If the test passes then it may be just some strange anomaly and there is nothing to worry about.

Regards,

Mark

After post, black screen, blinking cursor

Top Contributors this Month

Recommended Communities