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baseballboy64116@sbcglobal.net
 Why does my computer have a flashing dash during boot up?
I have XP. I don't have any anti-virus running during start up. And when I turn on my computer first it goes to the Dell screen and then to a mysterious flashing dash in the upper left hand corner. It takes like 25-30 minutes. The dash looks like the dash that u see when u click in a text box before you type.
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 Best Answer:
I have seen this problem with many people and here is the
it might occur due to two reasons
a. Hard drive has bad sectors
b. some external device is connected to computer at time of boot(USB/I-pods/printers) or media in CD/DVD drive.
remove external device except mouse and keyboard and check if it shows up black screen again. Remove media in CD ROM.
If its a HDD prob , their are three solutions
1.TEMPORARY SOLUTION
boot with XP CD (check power and idE/sata cables first)...Press "R" when it gives you an option to go to recovery console.
After you start the Windows Recovery Console, you receive the following message:
""Microsoft Windows(R) Recovery Console

The Recovery Console provides system repair and recovery functionality.
Type EXIT to exit the Recovery Console and restart the computer.

1: C:\WINDOWS

Which Windows Installation would you like to log on to
(To cancel, press ENTER)? . ""
Select the number corresponding to which windows you boot to. Once in recovery console ie a black screen with a prompt just like Dos command prompt type this command
chkdsk /r
hit enter and let it check the disk and recover what it can.(takes time)
If chkdsk fails then probably your HDD has gone bad, recover data by putting it as slave.
**Ok do this only if their is no way you can boot to your device and also not able to access your drive. Because this could lead you to lossing all data and corrupting you partitions**
in Recovery console type this command
map
note down the device name or out put its gives, then put this command
fixmbr \device\harddisk0
put the device name as the output you got from the map command
After successful completion use this command
fixboot c:

b. Semi-permanent Solution:
Reinstall OS
c. Permanent Solution:
buy a new Harddrive.

P.S depending on what year you bought your dell computer you might also have got Dell Pc restore...it will work only if you havent formatted your PC . try it try pressing CTRL+F11 at boot. Is gonna restore the computer back to ots original settings as when you bought it.

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