I have the same problem. But in my case the hard drive get invisible, and the system cann't boot from the visible DvD. I get the ugly message insert boot disk if you wonna use me ;). Bios setup stay accessible. I suspect something wrong with IDE hardware Any suggestions ? Thankx.
Hi all,
>
> I have an inspiron 3800 which will boot very occasionally but most of
> the time when I turn it on it does nothing.
>
> by nothing, I mean the fan starts and the screen appears to be in 80x25
> text mode with just a cursor blinking in the top left corner. there is
> no bios screen and no beeps. control-alt-del does nothing, nor does the
> setup button or f2 etc.
>
> on the rare occasions it does boot (no idea why) it is stable.
>
> any clues please? it's going in the skip if I can't figure it out...
>
> Andy
>