How to fix black screen of death?

[exbass94]

Dell Dimension 3000 Windows XP

I had a virus on my computer, so I tried to fix it by pressing Ctrl+F11 on startup and completely clearing the hard drive and starting over. I did this once before with great success.

So this time, I press Ctrl+F11, run the restore utility with no problems, click "Finish" and let it reboot. Halfway through rebooting, right after the Microsoft logo disappears, I get a blank, black screen with a small cursor blinking in the upper left-hand corner of the screen. It won't go away no matter how long I wait. The keyboard and mouse don't do anything.

I turned it off by holding down the power button, turned it back on without running the utility, and I still get a black screen.

I turned it off again, turned it back on and ran the utility again, and still get a black screen.

I do not have any back-up/recovery discs for this computer. I don't think this computer ever even came with them. Even if it did, they are nowhere to be found. So, using any discs isn't really an option.

 

[martin]

When the computers are new they usually tell you to create a recovery disk before you do anything else. That's if you read the instructions of course.
If you call Dell and give them the information on the computer they will send you a disk.