Black screen with flashing cursor after inserting Windows XP.

SUCCESS. HERE'S THE KEY or certainly a key for this sticky download.
went crazy trying to do this till I read this helpful discussion. you have to fiddle with a bit of everything here. So after the Mac partition ( 32GB ONLY) put windows disc in as requested, hit install then whatever you get,either flashing cursor/black screen, or part install/ blue frozen windows screen, or screen with no windows partition 3 option, IE wherever it gets stuck, do NOT remove windows disc but while holding down c key ( or if that doesn't do it after trying this, the option key, i ended up hitting both so i'm not clear on this) restart or shut down/start up and whatever you get white screen, black keep tapping the c or option key. After days of nothing up came the right screen and i partitioned & downloaded windows & it's running now on the mac & looking pretty good. Not exactly clear why this all works, its certainly something to do with freeing the boot up which seems to get stuck in some way but it did.
hope that helps

I have resolved this issue for four of our iMac computers with either of the following solutions. I realize that these solutions might seem awkward, but these solutions have been the only solutions that have successfully resolved this same issue for four different machines.

_*Solution 1*_

On the Mac OS partition, leave the Boot Camp partition that has yet to be configured.
Leave the Windows install disk in the optical drive.
Shut down the computer.
Unplug all cables.
Hold the power button for a minimum of 5 seconds.
Plug in all cables.
Turn the power on.
The computer will proceed to install Windows.

_*Solution 2 (If Solution 1 fails)*_

On the Mac OS partition, leave the Boot Camp partition that has yet to be configured.
Remove the Windows install disk from the optical drive.
Shut down the computer.
Unplug all cables.
Hold the power button for a minimum of 5 seconds.
Plug in all cables.
Turn the power on.
A black screen will appear prompting for a bootable disk.
Load the Windows install disk.
Shut down the computer by holding the power button.
Turn on the computer.
The computer will proceed to install Windows.

It's a MIRACLE!!!

Thank you doollaly. I did exactly what you posted (btw, its the ALT OPTION key) and it worked! Thank you so much. =)

I should have mentioned to remove the battery when unplugging the power cord and to put it back when plugging everything back if you are using my above solutions on a notebook.

monkeyboyhero, you're my hero! Your description of the process is exactly the method I used to get my windows vista home basic to install! to re-describe exactly how it was done:

-Create any size partition (I used 64gb) using boot camp assistant
-restart computer while HOLDING 'option' until dual-boot manager appears
-double click the windows install CD
-before the grey screen disappears, immediately begin rapidly tapping the 'any' key (I used the spacebar)

I've been an AppleCare certified technician for over a year and that problem never happened to me before today. Now I know it can happen to anyone, and how to solve it!

I know this thread is a little old, but I'm having the same (at least similar) problem. I don't get the "flashing cursor" or the quick flash that some describe, but every time I try to boot to a disk other than the OSX install it just freezes on a solid gray screen. When I hold the "Option" key down and manually select the disk, it instead freezes on that screen, still showing the HDD and the disk, but I'm unable to do anything. This has happened with XP, Vista, and Ubuntu disks and it's happened both after creating the Boot Camp partition with the Assistant and just as a test when the disk is all one partition.

I've tried all the solutions given: turn off and unplug, repair disk, repeatedly hitting any button or the c key or option. Still nothing for me. Any suggestions?

Message was edited by: Hanuman

Unbelievable!!!

I did the usual bootcamp partitioning and booted off Windows Installer....Flashing cursor....Pulled power out for 30 seconds as suggested and rebooted of installer....Worked!!

After bootcamping 30 - 40 machines this is the first time i have seen this....Least there is a fix...:)

BradBoz wrote:
Unbelievable!!!

I did the usual bootcamp partitioning and booted off Windows Installer....Flashing cursor....Pulled power out for 30 seconds as suggested and rebooted of installer....Worked!!

After bootcamping 30 - 40 machines this is the first time i have seen this....Least there is a fix...:)

No fix for me, i have tryed everything, but no succes for me yet.

Solved.
I tryed it before whit no luck, but after many reboots i disconected my mouse during boot, and finally Vista-installer started.

*"Mac,because it's just works"*..... What a load of crap

I didn't think it would, but this exact fix worked for me (unplugged power cord for about 30 secs and then voila)!

Tried holding down 'c', with no luck. Tried holding down alt key and manually selecting Windows disc (after pressing all sorts of key combinations) too.

Somehow the power did the trick!

I had the same problem with a new 20" iMac. Ran the OS updates, formatted the drive, installed OS X 10.5, ran updates, ran disk util and still had that darned blinking underscore. Switched XP install disks but that was no help. Finally the "c" key trick worked. I am formatting the partition right now, not the quick version. So far so good. I will try to post again later with the results.

Thanx to everyone here for posting your experiences, it is a great help.

I'm having this same problem with a Vista DVD - I've tried all of the suggestions here and still nothing - when I tell it to boot from Windows after holding down OPTION, I get the blank screen with the blinking cursor; I tried telling it to boot from the CD in System Preferences, and still nothing. Pressing "c" does nothing, pressing any key before the cursor appears does nothing.

I got it to read it last night, but now it won't read anything. I've tried to load from a Vista CD (one of five, which means I can't actually install it since there's no way to eject the CD from the Windows installer), and that worked last night but doesn't want to work this morning.

Any ideas? This is starting to get ridiculous.

Any other ideas? I'm having the same issue with my 2.4ghz white MacBook.

pulling everything out (power, all usb's including keyboard and ethernet) for 30 seconds worked for me!!! that's exciting!!

I have tried different options mentioned in this discussion. I finally got it "accidentally".
I am running iMac Intel OSX 10.5.6, using original Windows Vista DVD.

Here is what I did:
1) With blinking cursor on left upper corner, press and hold power button till it shuts down.
2) Press power button to restart, hold "Alt/Option", choose "Mac" to reboot into your OSX.
3) After boot up, I ejected the Windows DVD.
4) Then Restart (reboot), it shows "No bootable disk available, please insert bootable disk and press any key" (something like that, can't remember exact wording).
5) I put in Windows DVD and press any key, but nothing happened.
6) Press and hold power button till it shuts down.
7) Press power button to restart, when the blank grey screen is showing, quickly press "space bar" repeatedly.
8) Magically, it boots up the Windows DVD.
9) Then go into the Advance installation option, choose the right partition for installation, and again choose the Advance option to reformat the partition to NTFS. Complete installation, then put in OSX installation Disk 1, and run the bootcamp driver file (it will show up automatically).

Now, I believe, if you start from step 6), it will work.

Thank you all for letting me know the "quickly press any key repeatedly". That works!!!!!

Good luck!