[m2k]

I have a IBM ThinkPad T23 and when I turn it on nothing happens, it gives me the option for Setup(F1) or Boot(F12) but after that nothing happens. It doesn't boot to XP. All i get is a black screen with a blinking cursor.

Everything checks out in BIOS - the HD is recognized and the boot sequence is OK.

PS - Everything was running fine until one day my wife took in on the road, powered on, and said she got stuck in a boot loop (blue screen with error msgs before XP boots) and didn't know how to turn it off, so she just left it go for 10 minutes until the battery ran out. Ever since then, no blue screen or boot loops, just this blank, black screen with blinking cursor... Any ideas?

 

[mdeko]

could be a virus, try the recovery console, and/or recovery disks,

if all else fails, try resinstalling windows if you have a disk.

 

[m2k]

A virus? I was guessing battery or HD, but we didn't have any antivirus running at the time.

 

[Terrister]

To me it sounds like damaged boot files.

If you have a XP cd, boot from it and at the welcome screen choose repair. This will take you to a dos style screen. 1st type chkdsk /p and enter. This may take a long time. Next type fixboot and enter. After this, type exit and enter. Remove the cd and try to boot again.

Please note there is a space between chkdsk and the /p.

Post back and let us know how it goes.

 

[m2k]

I'll give it a try this evening and post back. Thanks...

 

[m2k]

To me it sounds like damaged boot files.

Right on the money! It's working fine now. If you don't mind, can you explain how the boot file gets damaged and how one could prevent it from happening again in the future? Thanks a million!!!

 

[whodat]

well thats the thing
you might be wise to run a serious spy and virus scan
choose trendmicro and one of the others below
also run spybot but update it first
post back

 

[m2k]

Hmmm, another blue screen while I was doing Symantec system scan for viruses:

KERNEL_STACK_INPAGE_ERROR

0xc0000185, 0xc0000185, 0x00000000, 0x00d4e000

Guess I'm not out of the woods yet. Trying to run it again right now. I guess I'll run spybot as well, although I use Firefox and rarely pick anything up.

 

[Terrister]

If you can get online, try the Trend online scan below.