here is a little background to my proble. I bought a new sony dvd burner today and I was going to simply replace my cd writer with this. I hooked it up as instructed. Very easy. Just hooked everything up the way the cd drive was. I then went to turn the pc on and it started to boot then went to a black screen with a blinking cursor in the top left hand corner. I tried it a few more times and the same thing. I then took the pc apart again thinking I had the dvd burner hooked up wrong. I then turned it on and it booted up to the desktop fine. I then messed around a little with software and when it asked me to reboot I got the blinking cursor thing again. I have had the pc apart several times and every once in a while it boots up fine. I have cleaned it out fairly good and tried to tighten everything in place. Yet it still wants to boot to the blinking cursor, most of the time. I have tried to put the old cd burner back in and its the same thing. I have looked everything over and I can't figure it out. Any ideas? The pc is an older emachines desktop model #s1940. about 4 years old. I am operating windows xp. I have reordered start up in bios to hard drive first. I have taken the floppy drive right out. Still blinking cursor on start up.
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emachines blinking cursor problem
- Thread starter cadensdad
- Start date
Normally suspicious of a loose ribbon cable on the motherboard, or a defective ribbon cable, if it seems to be hanging while trying to boot.
Next step is to do a drive ID from the BIOS if you have the capability.
Taking it back to the original burner would eliminate the possible jumper misconfig issue. so that is one less potential error.
Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.
Next step is to do a drive ID from the BIOS if you have the capability.
Taking it back to the original burner would eliminate the possible jumper misconfig issue. so that is one less potential error.
Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.
- Thread starter
- #3
I have the original burner in the machine right now. I don't have the floppy hooked up anymore. I was thinking this was the problem. I had the pc booting up fine today on my work bench. Then I went to move it back to where I was using it and bingo! back to the blinking cursor. So this is where I stand. I really believe there is a short or something going bad. Because it works sometimes but mostly it boots to the blinking cursor. I just wish I knew what it was so I am not buying things I don't need. I also have a new dvd burner I am considering taking back if I can't get this thing working. Thanks for the quick replies.
- Thread starter
- #4
Simple way: 2 IDE channels on the M/B, possibly 2 devices on each channel. Boot device normally on channel 1 jumpered as master and usually on end to cut down noise generation if only one drive. 2nd drive as slave and can be in either position. But you can also use cable select, in which case you have a different cable with one line opened and the master drive is the one at the end of the cable and both drives set as C/S.
CMOS usually set to AUTO to get the drive parameters from the drives themselves. Drive 1=channel 1 master, 2=slave, 3=channel 2 master, 4=slave.
Opticals on the 2nd channel.
You may have 40 conductor ribbon cable, or 80 conductor. If your M/B has faster capability channels the #1 is usually blue, but I've seen them red, and the 80 conductor cable has one matching blue end for the M/B.
Hope this is what you wanted.
Part of the BIOS may be autodetect of drives. You choose that section and the possible choices for each drive are displayed. The choices are for how the drive is addressed by the controller and the selection is added to the drive parameter section the same as if you chose it in the drive section.
Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.
CMOS usually set to AUTO to get the drive parameters from the drives themselves. Drive 1=channel 1 master, 2=slave, 3=channel 2 master, 4=slave.
Opticals on the 2nd channel.
You may have 40 conductor ribbon cable, or 80 conductor. If your M/B has faster capability channels the #1 is usually blue, but I've seen them red, and the 80 conductor cable has one matching blue end for the M/B.
Hope this is what you wanted.
Part of the BIOS may be autodetect of drives. You choose that section and the possible choices for each drive are displayed. The choices are for how the drive is addressed by the controller and the selection is added to the drive parameter section the same as if you chose it in the drive section.
Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.
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