Earlier today my computer froze and I got the blue screen of death. When I tried to start it again it wanted to run startup repair. Restarted after that and it was on the welcome screen forever so I just shut it off. Now I tried turning it on again and it's just a black screen with a blinking line. What is wrong? Can I fix it? Might have something to do with the 2 sticks of RAM running at the same time. I've made posts on here about that and haven't fixed it yet.

Sometimes (under your circumstances) windows startup can take up to 30 minutes to fully "recover" (and stay on the starting screen).

Can you tap the F8 key and get the Windows Startup Menu. (ie; Safe Mode, Safe Mode w/ Network, etc)

Do you have your O/S CD or DVD? You may have to try the Windows Recovery Console.

I can try F8 but then what? Yes I have my O/S CD.

No..F8 doesn't do anything. I start tapping the F8 key as soon as I turn it on. After a little bit it just beeps and I don't get the Windows Startup Menu. Ugh. What else should I do??

So I called this place that fixes computers. They said it's probably just the O/S and not the hardware. But just for them to look at it would be $40. And then the O/S may or may not need to be reinstalled. I would want them to save stuff on the hard drive. That total cost could be $240. Another place said $30 and then $180 but that would take a few days. They said I couldn't do this myself. But could I maybe? And I know this is a free forum but where is everyone that could answer my questions?

Not sure if there is even a point to posting this since noone seems to be around to answer. But here goes. I have tried multiple things suggested from Dell. Diagnostics tests etc. I was also told by someone else to use my Vista O/S DVD to run system repair. Well on the Windows site it tells me to restart my computer with the DVD in the drive. How am I supposed to restart it from the start menu if it doesn't start in the first place?? Also I know the repair will not wipe my hard drive. But other things I have seen are PC Restore or Manual Installation from the DVD. Will either of those wipe my hard drive?

which dell sys is it, most the new ones have recovery partitions these days,
If you don,t mind looseing your data. reinstall from dvd by swithing on and press F12 that will start the reinstall process from scratch.