black screen, blinking cursor

**Lawrence Marion** · December 20th, 2007, 06:43 PM

OK, just so everyone knows i have done some crazy research to find answers and nothing. i found a link on here and tried all the methods and nothing happens. this laptop is for my company and i really need it. i dont care if i have to whip out the drive because i back up everything. here is the dang problem. i was in a seminar last friday and when it was over i turned off my laptop. when i got to my home after my flight, i powered it up and i got a black screen with a blinking cursor. it has not worked ever since.
this is what i have...
HP Pavilion zv6000
double sided ram(256 ddr pc333 sodimm)
windows xp
i have not added a single thing or taken out anything

what i have tried...
new ram
new hdd
disconnect batt and cord, held down the power button for 10-16
tried to boot with factory disc
tried w/ xp, vista, 98, xp mc, everything
replaced mb batt(when i replaced the batt it tells me everything is ok but boot was not done correctly. opt: f1-cont, f2-for got but does nothing,f10-setup.
tried booting w/o hdd,rom,usb, network, everything
F8
changed boot order to rom, hdd
i even disabled all drives but rom

i know my way around computers and have saved my own butt many of times, but this is something that i can not fix. it wont boot at all. the only opt i have before that screen is, esc-boot order, f10-setup, f12-boot from lan.

on google it seems like a lost cause and my head hurts now. if anyone can help me i would be forever greatful

***DonJ*** · December 20th, 2007, 08:44 PM

Have you been to HP's website for your Pavilion zv6000?
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/p...&lang=en&cc=us

You can find manuals here:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/m...53185&lang=en&

Startup & Boot problems here:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/d...453185&lang=en

**CCT** · December 20th, 2007, 09:04 PM

I did some looking - that is apparently the 'El Cheapo' version and was issued in 2005.

My Forrest Gump impression:

"Thats' all I have to say about that!"

**NooNoo** · December 21st, 2007, 10:40 AM

Tried booting without the ac adapter connected?
Tried booting without the battery connected (but with the ac adapter)?

You can get into bios/setup - does the bios have a battery/ac charger page and if it does, does it recognise the battery and the charger?

Your computer has booted, just not into an operating system...possibly the hard drive controller on the motherboard died.

Tried booting with a usb flash drive?

**Lawrence Marion** · December 21st, 2007, 01:00 PM

Originally Posted by CCT

I did some looking - that is apparently the 'El Cheapo' version and was issued in 2005.

My Forrest Gump impression:

"Thats' all I have to say about that!"

last time i checked, i did not ask for you to tell me my stuff is cheap. if you can not help me then keep your mouth shut. im trying to figure out what you said and how that really helped me and others out with this problem

**Lawrence Marion** · December 21st, 2007, 01:02 PM

Originally Posted by NooNoo

Tried booting without the ac adapter connected?
Tried booting without the battery connected (but with the ac adapter)?

You can get into bios/setup - does the bios have a battery/ac charger page and if it does, does it recognise the battery and the charger?

Your computer has booted, just not into an operating system...possibly the hard drive controller on the motherboard died.

Tried booting with a usb flash drive?

ok check this out, if i hold the f11 button it will give me the option to auto recover but my disc does not work. so i see that it my be a partition problem. so from that screen do you think i can sneek in a new op system? as for the flash idea, cant say that i can add that to my list of things completed,lol.

**NooNoo** · December 21st, 2007, 01:17 PM

I am just wondering if, coincidentally the cd drive went down as well... depends on how it's hooked up to the mainboard. Some are attached to the usb, others to the hard drive controller.

Do you have a floppy disk? Or a usb floppy?

**Lawrence Marion** · December 21st, 2007, 01:23 PM

Originally Posted by NooNoo

I am just wondering if, coincidentally the cd drive went down as well... depends on how it's hooked up to the mainboard. Some are attached to the usb, others to the hard drive controller.

Do you have a floppy disk? Or a usb floppy?

USB, no floppy disc

**NooNoo** · December 21st, 2007, 01:41 PM

try this then

**CCT** · December 21st, 2007, 03:46 PM

Quote:
Originally Posted by CCT
I did some looking - that is apparently the 'El Cheapo' version and was issued in 2005.

My Forrest Gump impression:

"Thats' all I have to say about that!"

Quote:
originally posted by Lawrence Marion
last time i checked, i did not ask for you to tell me my stuff is cheap. if you can not help me then keep your mouth shut. im trying to figure out what you said and how that really helped me and others out with this problem

You are right - I was insensitive.

I should have just said that your comp is a 3 year old low cost unit, and since you had swapped ram and hard drive with no benefit it was likely to be a motherboard failure and that would be hard to replace in a cost effective manner.

**Lawrence Marion** · January 18th, 2008, 02:42 PM

This is a jump back into my problems i know, but i had family problems to handle.

well i can say that i have tried everything i can with this damn laptop. this is where i stand today

if i turn on hp i get black screen blinking cursor and it wont boot from cd. bio is set to boot from rom first and i disabled the hd, floppy(no drive though), and network connection from bios as wel. still cursor screen of pisstivity. so if i unplug and power on one million times i can luck out and get win98se disk to load. from there i get start with cd support and w/o. now if i try to load win98 it would freeze up on me. I can reboot over and over w/o problems. if i disconnect the power supply(w/o batt) the next time i power up i will get the blinking screen crap and the million tries to get it to boot. so after the million crap it loads from disk. from this point i put in my hirens boot disk and restart hp. i get two opt boot hdd or boot cd. i have gone into cd and ran every test i can. i pass mem, hdd, video, bios, cmos, i even pass the bios hdd test. so i used p.magic and set up a new partition(ntfs 3.1) and then rebooted. everything was done right and i can double chk it too. so now i put in my winxp cd and the installation process hangs at starting windows(hard ware chk stage i believe) I have cleaned my hdd many of times outside of an SE erase because the bios locks it on boot. so there is no info on hdd now and i still get crap from it. i cant even install win98. i have unplugged everything and still nothing.

edit: i even tried to install linux(mandriva,ubuntu,fedora) and i cant complete the install, it hangs.

**computron99** · January 18th, 2008, 03:05 PM

After reading this, I might look into swapping out the hard drive. I know it has passed the hard drive test. Also... have you tried re-seating the memory, CD drive, or the hard drive?

**Lawrence Marion** · January 18th, 2008, 03:11 PM

Originally Posted by computron99

After reading this, I might look into swapping out the hard drive. I know it has passed the hard drive test. Also... have you tried re-seating the memory, CD drive, or the hard drive?

I have tried a new hdd, new mem, and cd drv. did the reseating thing as well.

**CCT** · January 18th, 2008, 04:00 PM

The service manual for that comp indicates there is an internal memory module accessible only after removing the keyboard cover and keyboard. It also shows an externally removable door for another module.

If this is the case, then the internal memory could be shot.

h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c00364919.pdf

**geoscomp** · January 18th, 2008, 04:46 PM

"edit: i even tried to install linux(mandriva,ubuntu,fedora) and i cant complete the install, it hangs"

have you tried one of the linux distros that run off of the cd rather than being installed?