Flashing Cursor w/black screen

My computer has been starting with a black screen and flashing cursor in the top left corner for about 2 months now.

It was happening only once in a while but this past week it has happened every day. After about an hour it will come on and work fine except my cd/dvd player will not work.

This started after I downloaded windows media player upgrade. When it restarted it went to the black screen and cursor. We set the recovery date to before I downloaded the upgrade but it still isn’t working.

I've called some computer repair companies and I've gotten different responses as to what is causing it. Hard drive, dvd player, window xp, etc.

Wasn't sure where to post this question. Can anyone help me?

It sounds as if your hard drive may be failing. Does the computer go through the bios post?

I'd lean towards doing a repair load of XP, if that didn't fix it I'd run Memtest.

The fact that the DVD player quit working hints a failed DVD player.
Remove it from the system first (unplug power) and see what happens. I wouldn't bother with drivers and updates since it's not even finishing the POST

George, All I see is the HP screen pop up and then it goes right in to the black screen with flashing cursor.

CeeBee, I'm giong to try taking out the DVD/CD player and see if that works for starters. Thanks

Just wanted to let everyone know what the problem ended up being.

My computer guy came last week and got into my bios and it was set to start with the cd/dvd player instead of the hard drive. He changed it and it worked immediately. My cd/dvd player was replaced yesterday!! :thumbs:

Thanks for your thoughts.

Tammy

Thanks for letting us know how it was resolved.