My computer locks up and won't boot. What do I do?

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I started up my system today as normal. My internet was slow then my mouse started to hang up, then finally froze. I checked the connection-fine. So I restarted and when I do all I get is a black screen and one beep every 2-3 seconds. I am a complete novice so any advise would help. Thnx in advance!

Jessica and Patrick both: my gut feel is that you are experiencing hardware issues. I'd recommend getting a local technician to look at your machines.

When I boot up my Dell Optiflex running Windows 2000 Pro I just get a black screen with a flashing bar in the top left hand corner.
If I press Alt/Del/Ctrl and F12 as it restarts, I can choose to boot from c drive which works fine and takes me into normal windows startup.
Please tell me how can I get back to normal start up?
I have no other problems.

I'd contact Dell. That sounds like something that is happening in the BIOS before Windows ever starts. I'm not familiar with it.

Please can you help me, i tried to install a kids game on my home coputer but after the install, the computer crashed and has not worked since, at first i wasnt getting anything on screen but now after running my windows start up disc i am geting to my screen, although when i try to run any programme's it will not let me, i get an error messege that there is no drivers installed, i cant run my unti-virus to see if there is a virus, so i dont know what to do, just now i am useing another computer but i want to know if there is any way i cant sort my old one, i am on windows ME, its a pretty old computer but it was working fine untill i installed this game, and now it will not let me remove it, help please if you can. regards Sharon.

Can you be more complete about the error message? "is no drivers installed" - what's the exact wording of that message?

Hello

Yesterday i had a power failure at my house. after the power was restored i turned on my computer and it blue screen 5 seconds after the login pictures showed. the time is exact cause you have enough time to click the piture before it blue screens. i have disconnected everything and still the same thing. it will reboot and once its back to the pictures blue screens and start over again. any ideas? system was working fine before the power outage

Best I can offer is the information in the article you just commented on. It sounds like your copy of Windows has been corrupted, and you'll need to repair or reintall.

I am trying to fix a friend's PC that quit booting about a week ago. It would not power on at all so I swapped the HDD into my system as the slave. I did a virus scan and ended up removing about a dozen different virii. I switched it back to master (in my system still) and it booted into windows xp just fine. I put it back in the original system and it still didn't boot. What happens... I plug it in, flip the power supply on... the fans all spin once and... NOTHING! I've checked and rechecked every connection, every hardware item, and basically just everything I can think of. Could this be anything other than the power supply? Maybe a bios issue resulting from one of the virii? Thanks for the help Leo, you are the very best!

Oh, I forgot to mention that when I hit the power button on the front panel nothing happens. No lights, no power, nothing.

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