Well we have this computer we stopped using for a while (im not quite sure of the specs because a cousing of mine got it and it was ¨self made¨for what I know) it runs on XP not sure wich SP.

Today my mother turned it on because she wants to give it to my little sister since no one uses it and says she got a dialog where it said ¨sistem has been turned off th wrong way choose what you want to do: a) start with last working configuration, b) start windows normally c) start windows on safe mode¨ says she tried on a and then on b, but in both cases the system went to a black screen with a blinking white line and never moved from there in the next hour. Then she says she rebooted and pressed F12, she says she enabled a couple of thins she doesnt even know what. still black screen with blinking line and then she called me.

I came with an XP disk to format it (I´ve been wanting to format this computer for a while) so she told me what she had done, I tried starting it up normally, now it wouldnt show the ¨windows has been shut down abnormally¨ thing just go throuhg straight into the black screen with the blinking line, then I restarted, pressed F12, placed CD/DVD as fist booting device and tried starting from CD but I still get black screen and blinking line...

Can anyone please point me in the right direction please? because I dont know where to go from here all I can think of is keep restarting but I dont think it will fix the problem.
Thanks beforehand.

GaardCeteru, see if you can get into the BIOS or Setup Utility. Then, change the boot sequence so that the CD/DVD drive is before the hard drive. Then you should be able to boot from any CD that is bootable. Some boot discs put up a message, "press a key to boot from CD" and if you are not there to press a key, it will time out and boot from the next item in sequence.

GaardCeteru,
Have you tried Clearing the CMOS and Resetting the Bios Defaults ??
Also, is the HD spnning up ??
Regards,
Rick P.

If the system can't boot from a CD, it's pretty sick. It shouldn't matter what is on the hard drive because when you boot from a CD it loads it's own environment independent of Windows or any other installed OS. Since it's a self-made system, all of the usual diagnostics apply. Normally, you would open the system, insure all adapter cards and memory cards are properly seated. Check all cable connections. Make sure everything is getting power and all fans are spinning. If you have the motherboard manual -- or get the make an model then download the manual -- you would consult it for troubleshooting and/or checking connections and jumpers. Also, reduce the system to a minimum configuration by removing all hardware that is not needed to boot.

Then you start running burn-in tests, starting with MemTest86+ and so on. Of course, all of these burn-in tests run from a bootable CD, so that has to work first.