BleepingComputer.com: Nothing On Screen After Wipe Of Hard Drive

Solved! Thanks


I have a computer Dell Optiplex 260 ATX profile which was working that was donated so booted UBD to wipe x3 the hard drive. No instructions of how to exit the program so I hit esc and then had to do a hard powerdown. On startup, the screen remained blank with no options to go into setup or boot order. The hard drive light does on and then off. Boot order is diskette, hard drive, cd drive. There is no way to get to setup or boot order, even though I have repeatedly pressed F12 or F2. The monitor worked fine before the wipe.

On restart, I inserted a bootable CD to install XP to create partitions and then XP. There were no beeps. Screen stays blank. No Dell splash screen with options to setup or boot order. The computer stays on but just sits there.

What can I try next?

This post has been edited by CaroleAnne: 25 September 2008 - 10:24 PM

Reset CMOS and go from there.

This post has been edited by dpunisher: 25 September 2008 - 03:36 PM

As dpunisher mentioned, you should reset your cmos. The easiest way to do this is to first turn off and unplug your computer. Next, open the side panel up. Look around a bit and you should find a round-thin battery. Take this out for a few minutes. Afterwards, put it back in, put your side panel back on, and plug the computer back in. Now try to power it on.

Hopefully this works out for you!

Removing the battery and then replacing it worked just fine. It was my last ditch effort after I posted this request for information. Thanks so much for your replies, they were right on.