Having issues booting, all I get is a blank screen.

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checolo · #1 Post by **checolo** » Sat Sep 03, 2011 12:21 pm

I have a thinkpad x60 (1706) and I was trying to install windows 7 using a USB flash drive. I played around with the boot sequence in the BIOS and used an utility to make the USB device bootable ( don't remember which to be honest). After trying a couple of times without success I was unable to go pass this blank screen with a white cursor in the top left corner. I tried loading the BIOS default settings as well as updating the BIOS to the latest version but I have had no success... Any ideas?

Neil · #2 Post by **Neil** » Sat Sep 03, 2011 1:08 pm

Welcome to the forum.

Not all USB devices are bootable, for some reason. Of the three that I have, only one will boot. It seem to be rather easy to make a Linux boot drive out of a USB device, but a bit more difficult to boot a windows install CD. I have done it before, but don't have the info with me right now about how I did it. It might have been WinSetupFromUSB, but I'm not sure.

You could try Unetbootin with a Linux ISO, just to see if it will boot. That way you would know if you USB device is going to work. If it does then do some more reading, and try to prep your device for Windows installation.

checolo · #3 Post by **checolo** » Sat Sep 03, 2011 1:26 pm

Neil,

The problem is that now I am not even able to boot from the hard drive. I removed the USB flash drive, loaded the default settings, but still no luck. I am afraid I could have messed something at the BIOS level pretty bad.

Neil · #4 Post by **Neil** » Sat Sep 03, 2011 1:31 pm

Does the hard drive still show up in the BIOS? If you hit F12 at the splash screen, is the hard drive still in the list of boot devices?

checolo · #5 Post by **checolo** » Sat Sep 03, 2011 1:43 pm

Yes, it will show, as ATA HDD0, here is my current boot priority order:

1: USB FDD
2: ATAPI CD0
3: USB CD
4: ATA HDD0: FUJITSU
5: PCI LAN
6: USB HDD
7: ATA HDD1
8:
Excluded from boot order
: ATA HDD2
: ATAPI CD1

Neil · #6 Post by **Neil** » Sat Sep 03, 2011 3:34 pm

OK then...so there is no damage to the BIOS. Might have messed up the MBR on the HDD, though. Seems that is easy to do when there are two Windows bootable drives connected at the same time.

checolo · #7 Post by **checolo** » Sat Sep 03, 2011 3:47 pm

I swapped the HDD, I have not installed any OS on it but when I boot up the same thing happens... SHould I try to install an OS and see if that works?

Neil · #8 Post by **Neil** » Sat Sep 03, 2011 4:01 pm

Sure, go for it! Nothing to loose, right?

checolo · #9 Post by **checolo** » Sat Sep 03, 2011 5:12 pm

FIxed it, I installed Ubuntu using an external flash card reader and was able to boot up the computer without problems so maybe I did messed up the MBR on the HDD. Thanks a lot.

Having issues booting, all I get is a blank screen.

Having issues booting, all I get is a blank screen.

Re: Having issues booting, all I get is a blank screen.

Re: Having issues booting, all I get is a blank screen.

Re: Having issues booting, all I get is a blank screen.

Re: Having issues booting, all I get is a blank screen.

Re: Having issues booting, all I get is a blank screen.

Re: Having issues booting, all I get is a blank screen.

Re: Having issues booting, all I get is a blank screen.

Re: Having issues booting, all I get is a blank screen.

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