i turn on my comp, nd it goes through my video card BIOS, then it brings up the dell loadin screen, then all i get is some flashing underscore in the TOP left hand corner of the screen. any suggestions on whats wrong???
its a dell dimension 4100, P3 processor, NVidia GeForce 5200 fx video card, 2 Infineon 256Mb 168 PIN RAM cards, DVD/CD drive, CD-RW drive, Maxtor 40Gb HDD, Seagate Barricuda 7200.9 80Gb HDD.What happened PRIOR to this? Any hardware changes been made recently? Did this happen all of a sudden, or have you seen some gradually increasing symptoms of a problem developing?i had put a second hard drive in it about a week before it happed. I just woke up nd turned on the computer ONE morning, nd thats what it gave me.Can you access your BIOS and see whether it's recognizing both drives? Is that second drive for additional storage space or do you have programs installed on it?

Are both drives IDE (i.e. not SATA) drives?

As a test, you might disconnect the second drive and see whether you can boot up from your original drive.
Yea,, i can access my BIOS, and it reads both drives. right now i only have one drive connected. there both IDE drivesoh and the second drive is only extra space for music and such.I think the HDD are not detected. Try to enter in BIOS setup then see if the your HDD has been detected by the CMOS. Then if its detected. then make the your HDD the first boot device.Quote from: juanfishnet on August 20, 2007, 10:54:38 PM

I think the HDD are not detected. Try to enter in BIOS setup then see if the your HDD has been detected by the CMOS.