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Question

Can't boot past small smiling rectangle in corner

Sep 19, 2015 4:52AM PDT

When I boot up my computer, after it passes the bios screen, this weird little white rectangle with a smile face in it appears in the upper left corner of the screen, with nothing else on the screen, and the computer refuses to boot past it.

It used to appear occasionally when booting up in the past, but would either go away after a few seconds, or go away after pressing the enter key on the keyboard. Now, nothing will get rid of it. I am also unable to boot into safe mode or any other modes.

I took a pic of it, but unfortunately my camera couldn't get the clearest shot of it, so I had to draw the face on the pic myself:
http://i.imgur.com/flpjX7b.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/oFdka0Y.jpg

Discussion is locked

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Clarification Request
Share make, model, age.
Sep 19, 2015 7:21AM PDT

While I've seen similar when hard drives fail, I don't see the make and model. Some models lock up like that when USB things are plugged in but I don't see details about the PC or what's plugged in.
Try it without any USB things.

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Unplugged usbs
Sep 19, 2015 11:27AM PDT

I don't know make or model, since my dad purchased it from a guy who builds and sells computers, but it is only a few months old. I tried unplugging all usb attatchments, which were just a thumb drive and 2 external hard drives, and while the smiling box did not show up this time, the blinking underscore that was in front of it still did, and it still would not boost past it.

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OK, try booting from CD/DVD/USB
Sep 19, 2015 11:37AM PDT

I'm taking your word the BIOS works and it spews some errors when we unplug the HDD.

As a hardware test I boot some Live CD/DVD/USB like the UBCD, LinuxMint or other.

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How do I do that?
Sep 19, 2015 11:54AM PDT

I've never done anything like that before. I know how to boot from a cd or usb, but I have no idea what I should use. Just looking at the UBCD site, there are tons of different things to choose from.

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You would not be the first.
Sep 19, 2015 12:25PM PDT

The reason we move to trying to boot ANYTHING else is to see if our hardware is any good.

There are many web articles and youtubes about booting from USB, CD, DVD so I don't write how here. You have to find one you like and maybe it will be a dozen articles till you figure out what works for you.

This is us trying to avoid a repair counter or seeing if the machine can tell us where it broke.