Can't boot - black screen blinking cursor

[jafstraycat@gmail.com]

Re: Can't boot - black screen blinking cursor

Here's a post-script for you...

I would suggest shrinking your partition to 128Gb or less... or better
yet, just split it in two.

And as a possible temporary fix, try slaving off the drive to another
computer and defragging it. My theory is that you might get all of
your data back inside the crucial cut-off point of the partition and
be able to boot from it again. Just thinking out loud on this one,
though.

Good luck,
David

 

[operaflute]

Re: Can't boot - black screen blinking cursor

Sorry folks - i missed all these replies. Here's an update.
I'm told my Dell can handle up to 160 GB drive.
I did not do a clean install to the new hard drive, but I tried awfully hard
to use a backup image that would boot fine. That being said...

I made a boot disc to try the next time I shut down and wouldn't you know
it, the dang thing has restarted normally a good 5 times now! I wonder if
when I installed the new hard drive I inadvertently transferred some bad
files to it... I really made a point not to do that, but after all the
repeated backing up/restoring I could have lost track. I'm out of town now,
and not brave enough to shut it down now, but if the problem recurs, I'll
certainly be back here!
Weird.
As always, many thanks to all!


"jafstraycat@gmail.com" wrote:

> Here's a post-script for you...
>
> I would suggest shrinking your partition to 128Gb or less... or better
> yet, just split it in two.
>
> And as a possible temporary fix, try slaving off the drive to another
> computer and defragging it. My theory is that you might get all of
> your data back inside the crucial cut-off point of the partition and
> be able to boot from it again. Just thinking out loud on this one,
> though.
>
> Good luck,
> David
>

 

[jafstraycat@gmail.com]

Re: Can't boot - black screen blinking cursor

I'm not sure why Dell does it, but I recently had the same problem
with a Dimension 4550 that Dell sold with a 250GB hard drive. That's
all fine and dandy except it had BIOS version A03. Not until version
A04 did they add UDMA support for 48-bit LBA hard drives larger than
137GB. I was talking to two Dell techs who were completely oblivious
to this problem... go figure!! So whatever Dell tells you... take with
a grain of salt.

 

[operaflute]

Re: Can't boot - black screen blinking cursor

The drive worked fine for 10 months, so I don't think it was a BIOS
incompatibility. I did end up putting in a new drive last week or so, and
then had the same problem. But now it's working fine (go figure) so I think
I inadvertantly transferred some bad files the first go around. (as much as
I meant not to, after a month of backing up and restoring I guess it's easy
to get mixed up.)
Now if only I could get SP3 installed without wrecking everything...


"jafstraycat@gmail.com" wrote:

> I'm not sure why Dell does it, but I recently had the same problem
> with a Dimension 4550 that Dell sold with a 250GB hard drive. That's
> all fine and dandy except it had BIOS version A03. Not until version
> A04 did they add UDMA support for 48-bit LBA hard drives larger than
> 137GB. I was talking to two Dell techs who were completely oblivious
> to this problem... go figure!! So whatever Dell tells you... take with
> a grain of salt.
>