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General discussion

My computer won't boot up!

Jul 29, 2009 1:15AM PDT

Here is my issue, I bought a Dell Laptop. Really,I think that's my issue lol Anyways I shut it down and went to turn it on later in the day and now it won't work. I am using my desktop computer to write this. When I go to turn the Laptop on all I get is a black screen with a tiny blinking line in the top left hand corner. This is what the line looks like: _

And it just blinks. The screen stays black and it blinks and won't go anywhere, my system won't even boot up. I tried taking the Windows Vista Install disc and hoping that it would work. It seemed to reinstall everything and than said it needed to reboot. Once it reboot of course it went back to the blinking thing. Right now it's just a large paper weight.

If anyone knows how to fix this problem, I'd appreciate the help. Thanks.

Discussion is locked

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My kid's laptop did that.
Jul 29, 2009 3:55AM PDT

I went over to look and unplugged the scanner and the boot continued as if nothing had gone wrong. I'm sure other USB things can cause this.

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Same Problem, if any solutions, please help
Oct 5, 2009 1:53AM PDT

Have a Dell Inspiron 9300, did an update last night, turned it on and it is a black screen with a blinking: _ on the top right of the screen and don't know what to do. Looking for solutions. Thanks.

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Computer Won't Boot - Blinking Underbar
Oct 21, 2009 11:15PM PDT

I have a Dell Dimension - Windows XP OS - about 4 years old - did a windows update last night - told me to reboot - when I did - there is blinking underbar in the left corner of the screen - when I CTRL ALT DEL - it tries to load windows but goes back to blinking line - XP will not load - is it a hard drive problem or an OS problem? Possible virus?

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My Bet, OS problem
Oct 23, 2009 4:04PM PDT

XP tried to install an update on my system a month or so ago and after 20 minutes of installing it came up with a "Access Denied" error and backed out. Then it told me that XP might be corrupted and that I should repair it. Good luck on that, as soon as I put my XP CD in it said I had a newer version on my computer and wouldn't run the repair. Don't you just love Microsoft? Quite frankly I would turn off the auto update feature and only install security fixes in the future.