Dell laptop screen is black when i turn it on with just a blinking cursor

[irishguy]

Hello,
wheni turn my laptop on, all i get is a black screen with the cursor blinking on top left corner. I press F12 at times, it works, but also can reboot or system restore without going back to the black screen, Please help

 

[arges86]

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314503/en-us

this is for XP, but the same concept works for Vista too.
first thing of course is to make sure you don't have anything in your disk drivers, or floppy drives.

Does your BIOS POST?

 

[arges86]

you may want to try this too
http://forums.techarena.in/vista-setup-install/664710.htm
its a bit long winded but gets the job done

 

[ritenours86]

I realize this is a very old article, but I found it quickly off a Google search so others might also. I had the same problem and all I did remove the RAM and put it back in. Fired up without a problem next boot.