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General discussion

Black screen with a non-blinking underscore after bootscreen

Sep 9, 2010 3:00AM PDT

I just upgraded to Windows 7 on my Toshiba Satellite Special Edition laptop that came with Vista 64bit and the other night i downloaded iTunes 10 and told me to restart my machine so I clicked ok and then my laptop shut off and when it came back on the Toshiba screen came up as usual but seemed to stay on longer than normal then it goes to a black screen with a underscore that blinks for a few moments then becomes solid. Ive tried to use the "F" keys to get different boot options because i have the windows 7 ISO disc and a ubuntu disc that I could use but whatever i try my laptop wont process it just does the same thing over and over again and bever proceeds to the actually boot up windows. what could be going wrong and how can i fix this? i'm seriously thinking about staying with linux...since vista and W7 have been screwing up terribly the past 2 months.

Thanks!

Discussion is locked

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Try this simple thing.
Sep 9, 2010 5:19AM PDT

Unplug all USB things and try again.

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RE: Try this simple thing
Sep 9, 2010 5:43AM PDT

oh, sorry that i didn't mention earlier but i only have a USB powered fan hooked up and i unpluged it just to make sure and still same response...

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Try the generic reset.
Sep 9, 2010 7:45AM PDT
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Works...
Sep 10, 2010 12:13AM PDT

Thanks so much you are awesome, it worked flawlessly!

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Thanks and sorry.
Sep 10, 2010 11:40PM PDT

Sorry I can't answer what went wrong here. All I know is that the two answers above are things that I try in cases where I get the blinking cursor. There are more but the steps change slightly as we try one thing then the next.

The good news is that it worked so we move along!
Bob

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Thank you
Jun 24, 2011 12:48PM PDT

I had just about givern up the laptop for dead..... this worked a treat - two thumbs up! Thanks

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Good to read.
Jun 26, 2011 11:15AM PDT

It's a great last ditch tech trick. I wish it was more widely known. Pass it along,
Bob

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Works!
Mar 2, 2013 9:38PM PST

Thank you!

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Thanks for the report.
Mar 3, 2013 2:15AM PST

It's always cool Cool when this works. My hope is that folk keep this information/trick handy.
Bob

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didnt work for me
Aug 22, 2014 12:53AM PDT

i have the same problem, win7 not booting up with a frozen underscore. i tried this generic reset but it didnt work. i have a lenovo g570 laptop. months ago, it was a blinking underscore and it boots up then crashes after a few minutes. now it wont boot at all with a frozen underscore.

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Old post.
Aug 22, 2014 1:06AM PDT

Start a new post but be aware the underscore on screen is a well discussed failure.
Bob
"This thread is more than 1442 days old. It is very likely that it does not need any further discussion and replying to it will serve no purpose. However, if you feel it is necessary to make a new reply, you can still do so."