troubleshoot windows 7

Hello,
I have a thing with my hp where with Windows 7 I get a freeze and then when I do reboot from the machine I get nothing but a black screen with a blink in the upper left hand corner don't have a clue what to do? My tapping the f 8 key does not get me anywhere, my recovery cd is not recognized,....it just sits there,....please help poor me,...

Edited by catcher22, 30 June 2010 - 12:33 PM.

How old is this PC? If it is still under warranty, that may be your best bet.

If not under warranty, you may have a friend check your recovery disks to see if they are bootable (sometimes they are incorrectly burned). If not, you may have to order a new recovery set.

If they are bootable, you may try replacing the optical drive with a loaner or an external and see it if boots.

Also, check the Hard Drive in the BIOS. Make sure it is being detected. Also check all cables on the inside to make sure they are secured, and check your CPU fan/heatsink to make sure it is properly mounted.

Be careful inside your PC though! Don't open it on carpet, and touch the case before you touch any parts to ground yourself. If not, you could perma-fry internal components.

You haven't given much information about the computer. I have an HP CQ61 laptop and I was having trouble with AVG antivirus causing it to freeze (if that is problem see my posting regarding freezes) on some occasions when I tried to reboot it only came to a black screen. On those occasions unplugging everything fron the USB ports seemed to fix it. I am not sure whether it was a real problem or not , I haven't had the problem except when I was rebooting after a freeze. Is just a suggestion to try.

Edited by gawally, 03 July 2010 - 11:14 AM.