The Dell White Flashing Cursor of Death

Image by javYliz via Flickr

My wife’s Inspiron 1525 has always been a bit possessed. It looks nice on the outside and does the job, but it is a bit clunky. We couldn’t beat the price though.

Tonight, it just wouldn’t turn. It would start up. The white timer bar would go across the bottom of the screen. But then only a white flashing cursor on the black screen would show. Okay.

Using the beat with a hammer method, I tried rebooting it a few more times. About 7 or 8 times. Then I tried the Media Direct button. What the hell. If it worked, then at least something did. And it did. I could get to pictures and videos also. So the hard drive was still in there somewhere.

So I searched for “Dell flashing cursor”. And came up with this, which didn’t apply. Though before I went back and read it more thoroughly, I found out how to create a bootable DOS USB Stick and how to flash the BIOS from it. And here is where to find Dell drivers.

Hey, it needed an updated BIOS anyway. And now it has one. I even took picture, which I am not posting to further prove my idiocy. It also still had the flashing cursor.

I happen to run into this 160 GB hard drive/BIOS issue here which I just stepped back from. Did not even want to read it.

So I ran into this post over a Yahoo Answers that gave me a “Duh” moment. And when you do insert the disk to reinstall the Dell’s operating system, realize that there also is a repair function. I found this after backing out of reinstalling Windows. I thought it would be best to ask my wife about files she may need. I could get them off now.

And I saw the repair link, which worked like a charm and took less than five minutes, with no lost files files or other issues. In the words of Napoleon Dynamite, “Idiot!”