Black screen with blinking dash.

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I have an HP Pavilion that hangs on startup. It was working fine a few days ago and now it stops directly after the blue startup screen and hangs on the black screen with a blinking dash. I've ran the diag test and everything, including the SMART test, passes. I've also tried resetting everything to default and switching the two ram sticks in and out in different slots to no avail. It did come with factory image discs that I've used numerous times in the past with no problems. However, when I try and use them now I get to around 13% and get this error message:

"Recovery Manager could not restore your computer using the factory image. Please contact HP support, Error code: 0xe0ef0003"

I'm just wondering if there's a possibility that the discs have become corrupted or if it's something more critical. I'm open to all suggestions and thanks in advance!
 
Solution
Ck1_13
When your computer starts up, and passes the POST (ram count, etc), the next thing it does is look for a boot sector, to load an OS from. Your PC is trying to load the OS from the hard drive, but sticking at a blinking cursor, usually because there is a problem/corruption with your boot record.

Now in XP there's a few things you can do, you need to beg/borrow/steal an install disc, and boot from it into recovery console.

Once there, here's the things you can try. It's too much typing so I suggest googling these for more information if you aren't familiar with them:

chkdsk /f - this may fix your boot record, and allow you to boot

bootcfg /rebuild - this will fix your boot file called boot.ini, which will point to your OS

fixboot -...
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Ck1_13

Ck1_13

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When your computer starts up, and passes the POST (ram count, etc), the next thing it does is look for a boot sector, to load an OS from. Your PC is trying to load the OS from the hard drive, but sticking at a blinking cursor, usually because there is a problem/corruption with your boot record.

Now in XP there's a few things you can do, you need to beg/borrow/steal an install disc, and boot from it into recovery console.

Once there, here's the things you can try. It's too much typing so I suggest googling these for more information if you aren't familiar with them:

chkdsk /f - this may fix your boot record, and allow you to boot

bootcfg /rebuild - this will fix your boot file called boot.ini, which will point to your OS

fixboot - fixes the boot record

fixmbr - fixes the master boot record.


Some of these can 'possibly' make things worse, for instance if you have bad sectors, and you run a chkdsk, and it 'fixes' a movie file, that movie file may no longer be playable. Thusly, like I said google them first.

I am not familiar with windows 7 procedures, but they must have the same capability as it's predecessor, with regards to these steps.

and FYI, The 'worst' case scenario , you may need a new hard drive. Where it's an HP, you may be under warranty, give them a call.
 
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I have recovery discs, how do I boot into the recovery console?
 
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Ck1_13

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Taken from google:

If you have XP, then Insert the Windows XP CD into the CD drive.

Click Start, and then click Run.

In the Open box, type d :\i386\winnt32.exe /cmdcons where d is the drive
letter for the CD drive. ...

A Windows Setup Dialog Box appears. ...

Restart the computer.

When you boot up, you will have 2 options, 1 for windows, 1 for recovery console. Should work on any XP CD
 
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It doesn't make it to the desktop. I turn it on, it shows this, then goes to the black screen with the blinking dash. I can access everything except for safe mode. I have Windows 7 factory image discs and when I insert disc one, it loads the files then takes me to the recovery options. I can only choose recover from media and it works fine until about 13% then gives me the error.
 
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Ck1_13

Ck1_13

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Beg, borrow, steal a 'retail' XP CD, you can boot from that into recovery console, and run your chkdsk. Once the hard drive is fixed, you should be able to run your recovery.

Actually, you don't even need an XP cd, you can use a linux live disc, windows 2k, anything that is bootable to a DOS prompt. The point is, you need either A: a way to boot to be able to run chkdsk, or B: any 3rd party program that is bootable, and fixes hard drives, such as spinrite, hddgen, etc.
 
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Alright, so somehow I got it to boot into safe mode with the cmd prompt. I ran chckdsk and it gave me this,

hGEsKN4.jpg



 
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