Black screen with flashing cursor when booting W7

[blueskyx7]

Hi, new to the forum.

I'm working on a dell inspiron 1525 for a friend. It came with vista but it was loaded with virus's. I formatted the hard drive and am now trying to install windows 7. The problem is that Everything that I am trying in just going straight to a black screen with a blinking cursor at the top left corner. I have done some research on this problem but none of the comments were from new installs. Vista was working fine except for being slow so i'm not thinking anything hardware related.

I've tried booting from cd, flash drive....and its all doing the exact same thing.

Any help would be great. Thanks

 

[gregrocker]

First run the Dell Diagnostics from boot to test the hardware: Dell Diagnostics Utility - How to Run the . If they run then I would try to keep the Dell OEM Diagnostics partition - at Step 7 of Clean Install Windows 7 delete all partitions but it. Recovery will no longer run after reinstall so delete it too.

Use the installer provided in Step 1 of Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 burned to DVD or written to flash stick using tool in Step 2. Unplug all other HD's and peripherals, Boot the installer by tapping the F12 key at boot to choose boot device. If you get a flashing cursor it is not booting the device.

If problem persists Boot into BIOS setup, reset to defaults, save changes. (If an EFI BIOS you'll need to decide if you want UEFI BIOS vs. Legacy BIOS. If UEFI follow these special steps for Install, otherwise enable Legacy BIOS or Compatibility Support Module to proceed with normal install.) Set DVD drive first to boot, HD second, set SATA controller to AHCI, Save changes and Exit.

Then boot into Windows 7 installer DVD or flash stick burned or written using tool and latest ISO for your licensed OS version here.

At first installer screen Press Shift + F10, or enter System Recovery Options to open a Command Box, type:

DISKPART
LIST DISK
SELECT DISK 0 (after confirming Windows 7 target HD #)
CLEAN
CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
FORMAT FS=NTFS LABEL="WINDOWS 7"
ACTIVE
EXIT
EXIT

Next click Install Now, then Custom install to Clean Install Windows 7 to the partition you created. If it fails then report back at which step and the verbatim error message.

In addition read over these steps to understand the tools and methods which work best to get and maintain a perfect Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7. The steps are the same for retail.

After install you can adjust partition size or Create new partitions for data, etc. in Disk Mgmt. You are creating the partition here for the purpose of wiping the HD and marking Active which overcomes certain install failures.

 

[SandeepP]

Hi, new to the forum.

I'm working on a dell inspiron 1525 for a friend. It came with vista but it was loaded with virus's. I formatted the hard drive and am now trying to install windows 7. The problem is that Everything that I am trying in just going straight to a black screen with a blinking cursor at the top left corner. I have done some research on this problem but none of the comments were from new installs. Vista was working fine except for being slow so i'm not thinking anything hardware related.

I've tried booting from cd, flash drive....and its all doing the exact same thing.

Any help would be great. Thanks

Hi blueskyx7,

In addition to what gregrocker rightly suggested, please run a hard-drive diagnostics on the system to confirm hardware functionality from the link below:

http://dell.to/11NpLCy

Also, ensure there are no other USB devices connected to the system. Please keep us posted with the results.