Hello. Like many people i should make it clear that i know very little about computers and how they work, so i'm probably going to make a fool of myself but here goes...!
We recently got a PC and had the graphics card, RAM and i think hard drive (?) replaced because it wasnt working before - wouldnt do anything. It has been fine for some time but i have just turned it on and it goes through the screens that says press Del to enter setup (or something similar) and then comes up with a black screen, that eventually has Y∞Y (Y infinity sign Y) in the top left. Anyone know what is going on and what this means? Something to do with the drives or Windows XP since it doesnt get as far as loading that?
Thanks

Enter Setup and see if any hard drives are detected.

When you say you recently got this ... and all this rebuilding ...

Did you recently get this rebuilt computer or did you rebuild a computer that was recently new?

Who built it? Do they not guarantee their work?

Anyway the BIOS is not finding a boot drive or else the boot drive is damaged.

You could try the manufacturers diagnostic on the hard drive if the BIOS detects it.

My boyfriend put these new components in to the reasonably new computer (his parents had it and gave it to us). It has worked fine for months.
The computer detects the hard drive in the set up but i dont know how to run the diagnostic on the hard drive - can you explain how i do that?

The manufacturer will have a diagnostic program on their web site to download and then create a boot floppy or CD if you do not have a floppy drive.

You need to know the manufacturer of the hard drive.

Originally Posted by Jeckel

Hi, back in march you replied to a thread about a computer booting to a black screen and "Y ∞ Y" in the left corner. I am having the same thing. How did you determin this is a HDD issue? I am fairly well versed in PC repair, and have never seen this problem. I felt releived that I found anything at all on the web about it. All I can say, my pc had been running for a while, and I thought it might be a virus or something. plus I installed a little kids digital camera. could it be that driver causing the problem?

There are a few other instances here:

http://www.winportal.com/chat_sin.asp?ObjectID=16739

That is about all I can find.

I determined nothing but was just beginning to troubleshoot and the original poster never returned.

I don't know why the Y ∞ Y but I was going along the idea that it was no different from your standard blinking cursor. In other words the computer can find nothing to boot.

So then: could be cables; could be hard drive; could be BIOS boot order; could be a MBR problem.

Those are the first things I would check out.

Thank you for your reply. That link was just people having the same problem, no answers. It makes sense tho to treat it as a blinking cursor issue. I'll check it out and post back.