Black screen flashing cursor. HELP!!

[ShanShan]

I have a HP G60 64bit laptop that I have had for several years now running Vista . Several months back we left, and came home and the laptop was showing a black screen with a blinking cursor in the top left corner. (Laptop worked fine before we left our house)


I have searched endlessly online trying to find a solution to no avail. I had my brother look at it, whom is better on computers then I am and he seemed to believe it was a hard drive issue.

I ordered a new hardrive which arrived last night. I'm not sure how to even run what I need to, to install the new HD with the black screen. Or what to do to try and see if a fix is possible using my original hard drive.




I'm going in blind here and really need some step by step help on how to resolve this issue. I just want my computer back up and running and have no idea what to do. ALL HELP is greatly appreciated.

 

[gonwk]

I have a HP G60 64bit laptop that I have had for several years now running Vista . Several months back we left, and came home and the laptop was showing a black screen with a blinking cursor in the top left corner. (Laptop worked fine before we left our house)...

Hi ShanShan,

First of all I am No Expert (disclaimer) but may be I can be of some help.

If the laptop was working fine for years and then out of nowhere went berserk ... that is kind of odd ... but I suppose it can happen ... I am assuming you left the laptop "On" while you were gone ... if it was showing a Black Screen when you came back ... now you might have gotten a power surge of some sort ...

Or may be a Bios glitch which I read somewhere awhile ago ... so do the following ...

1) Remove the battery and disconnect the power cord from the Laptop.
2) Press the power button for a few Second (While Battery Out and Cord Off from the Laptop).
3) Connect the power cord First. Press the power button to start and THEN dock the battery.

Did this fix your problem ... if so, you are good to go ... if not then ...

1) Try to reboot into "Safe Mode" ... on my laptop when I restart it I Tap repeatedly on F8 key till the Safe Screen pops up ... then choose "Fix My PC" or "Repair My PC" the minimum option and let it do it's thing ...

If you got a Normal Start-up ... then you are good so far ...

So, do a Normal Restart ... and see if your laptop comes up Normal ... if so, you are out of Hot water ... if not repeat Step 1 till you get to Normal Windows ... then

2) Go to System Restore ... and see when was your Automatic System Restore Point ... Tick "SHOW Older Ones" too and see which one you want to Revert back to that date ...

Do a restart normal again, if fixed then you are good.

I added couple of Disk Check links below since your brother suspects a Hard Drive Issue ... run those to make sure your HD is OK ...

How to Check Your Hard Drive for Errors in Windows Vista - For Dummies

Check your hard disk for errors

The How-To Geek Guide to Using Check Disk in Windows 7 or Vista

If none of these Solve your problem then probably you have to do a Clean "Recovery Startup" basically it will Clean wipe your laptop to Original Factory Setup ... I assume HP has a Recovery Partition ... like Partition D ... like in my Gateway ... it reinstalls Fresh from there ...

Post back your results.

G!