Flashing Cursor

[jack0w]

We have a strange issue which I hope someone may be able to shed some light on!

 

Our Library has 15 identical HP dx2000 computers, these have all been imaged with the same image using FOG. Originally they were imaged during the summer holiday, however since then we have had computers randomly failing to boot up.

 

The computers will post fine, enter the BIOS and you can see the HDD as normal.

 

If you allow the computer to continue past post, instead of showing the 'Windows XP loading' screen you are left on a black screen with a white flashing cursor in the top left hand corner.

 

I've tried booting from a Linux Live CD and am able to access the partition and view files without any problems. I've also run the Disk check on the HDD and the only thing flagged is 5 bad sectors - which shouldn't be a big issue as I understand most HDDs leave the factory with a few bad sectors.

 

If I re-image the computer again, it boots up fine (same image that was originally deployed!)

 

Does anyone have any ideas as to what could be causing this? Its becoming a real bind to re-image computers in Library almost on a weekly basis.

 

Any thoughts gratefully received!

[DAZZD88]

Looks like your MBR is a bit broke. Try booting from Windows CD and go to recovery console. Then run FIXMBR. From what I recall this fixes your problem most of the time.

[jack0w]

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll give that a try. Any idea what could cause that to happen?

[DAZZD88]

DX2000s are old machines now, probably just the HDD getting old and maybe the MBR becoming corrupt.

[Michael]

If it keeps happening randomly on machines from the same image, I'd say it's a problem with the image itself.

 

As an experiment, also try making the hard disk the only bootable device in the BIOS.

[jack0w]

I've just tried booting off the Windows CD, I get the prompt to press any key to boot from the CD. Once I've done this you see the message saying 'Setup is inspecting your computer hardware'. After this the screen goes black.

 

Sorry that's my fault, forgot to mention that point in my original post - the problem hasn't as yet reoccurred on computers that have been re-imaged.

 

I've also tried making the hard disk the only bootable device as per your suggestion but no joy unfortunately

[tmcd35]

Have you tried resetting the BIOS back to factory settings and/or changing the CMOS battery? A long shot but sometimes fixes these problems.

[leon999uk]

Maybe try updating the bios?

[jack0w]

Just updated the BIOS to latest version and reset to defaults, same behaviour as before.

 

Also no flash drives in the computer on this occasion - wish it was that easy to fix!!

[vtadmin]

I stumbled upon this thread while trying to figure out this issue that I am having with a computer lab that consists of 30 HP DX2000 computers with identical images.

 

I imaged them using FOG with the latest updates from MS. Deployed them and a few days later they started to crash, one day only two of them and the next day 18 of them. The issue is that when the computer is booted (or rebooted) there is a black screen with blinking cursor. I am unable to boot to safe mode, tried fixmbr, fixboot and a windows repair will not fix the issue.

 

Anyone ever get this issue resolved?

 

Thanks!

[vtadmin]

thanks!