I'm now getting very frustrated.

Yesterday morning, the computer was running fine. No problems at all. So in the afternoon, I decide to tidy up the cabling before the new graphics card arrives.

Wrong move.

When it was all wired back up, Windows 7 wouldn't start. No worries I thought, I'll just re-install.

Same problem.

It goes through the bios page, and then instead of the loading page I'm greeted by a black screen with a flashing underscore in the top left hand corner.

This frustrated me no end.

After endless fiddling, it will not work. It thinks it's installed, and then presents that screen at the last moment.

The bit I don't understand is that XP works fine! I'm using it now! Grrr!!!!

If anyone can help, please let me know!

The computer is now only running the one HDD, with nothing other than windows on it. This still hasn't worked.

GRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!

When you say it thinks it's installed, I assume it goes through the standard Windows 7 setup as normal then bombs out to the black screen when finished? When you're reinstalling Windows, are you re-using the same partition or are you wiping the drive entirely and starting with a fresh partition?

John

Sounds like a Win & driver issue to me.

Doing a complete fresh install on a formatted drive. I tried partitions, and that didn't work so I backed up data and tried without partitions on the complete drive.

If it is a driver issue, is it fixable?

I downloading the latest 64bit Ubuntu, I feel that this may be the way forward despite not having used linux before in my life...

I'd give everything a wiggle as well to make sure you ain't knocked something, although the fact that xp works kind of rules that out.

Is XP on a spare hdd ?? IDE by any chance and the W7 on sata ??

I check and re-check all connections, to the point of unplugging everything and putting it all back in as if it were all new.

XP is on the hdd that did house all my movies, and it's SATA, plugged into SATA port 1 and set as the sole boot option to try and counteract and problems with the dvd drive...

I've done a mass google and no one else seems to have had this issue..

You wont regret using Linux, good stable platform. Good for internet as well very little chance of virus attacks.

The only problem you will find is the limited programs that work with Linux.

Is your bios win 7 compatable?

Yep, it ran 7 fine before I started with the cable tidying...

Grr...

I'd be trying the win7 drive on it's own in another sata port and reset the bios, battery and power out then short the jumper/reset button.

Sadly, tried it. I've tried it on 2 drives, both sata, both put in different ports when it didn't work.

Reset the bios, and it made no difference at all.

Thanks for the advice, but I think it's just not going to work.

Looks like Ubuntu with WINE for me!

Have you tried manually loading the sata driver for the hard drive during setup? I have seen this problem occur on Dell machines but never got to the bottom of it as the install looked fine and a reinstall resolved the issue.

John

Bit of an update:

For the min, I've given up on windows 7.

I'll wait until I've calmed down with the system before I end up breaking it.

Tried Ubuntu, didn't like the fact that even to run a simple program (such a iTunes) took 3 or 4 attempts to install it and get it working.

So, I'm back on XP Pro for a min. I'm going to have a hunt for a bios update over the weekend and see if that'll help.

Thanks for trying!

Have you installed different OS's on the HD that Win7 was on? Is it definitely a known good drive?

I've had the issue you're describing (the flashing underscore or hyphen) and it's usually fixed with a re-install but I think I've had it with a dead drive before too.

The drive that's got XP on (working) is the drive I tried with windows 7.

So Windowz was working and then stopped........

Was it a legit copy?

Is it plugged into the correct drive cable? have you dislodged the jumper on the drive? Power lead in nice and tight?

It's an aquired copy, but has not problems on the other 3 systems it's on.

All cables are correct, no jumpers have moved on the drive and the power lead is sat is as firm as it can get.

I just think my computer doesn't like it!

It's an aquired copy,

Would suggest that's problem . The activation system works well on first time - but fails next time .

Now up and running.

For reasons known only to itself, it now works fine after another HDD was put in and 7 installed on that.

Stupid computer. The other HDD's are still up and running as storage!

I have been having stupid weird problems with Win7 (legit copy).

Two weeks after install and the wifi card went doolally; I have tried everything, including a new wifi card and it makes no difference the wifi will no longer work in Win7; BUT IT WORKS FINE USING UBUNTU!!

Next up, the Ethernet port stopped working, it told me there was no cable plugged in, even under bios. But using the exact same cable works fine on an ancient 10/00 board I plugged in.

WTF ??

Have you tried a bios update?