Black screen with white flashing line on startup

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Gleech Author

Level 1

5 points

Black screen with white flashing line on startup

~computer info~

Mac OS X Version 10.6.7

2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB 1067 MHz DDR3

24 in. Montior

Startup disk: Macintosh HD

~Partition info~
FAT32 Windows XP

~issue~
Hello; I've recently encountered a problem with bootcamp that I can't find a solution to... Every time I start up the computer in boot camp, all I get is that black screen with the white flashing line. It comes up, goes to a plain black screen, then quickly comes up again. It never stops, either. I've let it run, and it won't finish.

I've had the partition for MONTHS now, and nothing like this has happened. I've had it since I upgraded to Snow Leopard awhile back, and needed to re-partition the drive. I literally had been using it the day before it happened, and the only thing that happened was that I got that "Windows Security 2011" malware, but I got rid of it fully (As I've gotten it 3 times this month). The other two times I got it, it didn't do anything. I fixed it, and went on with life. But is it possible that it broke something in the partitions inner files this time?

I ran disk utility, and it said the partition was broken. After verifying it and confirming this, I did "Repair Drive", as it allowed me to. It finished with no errors and said it completed, so I tried to go back into the partition, but it gave me the same results.

To be honest, most of my stuff is on my External Harddrive, so re-doing the partition is only going to be time used to me. But I still DO have things on there, and it'd be a pain to transfer them back and forth between the Mac and Windows partitions... I'd really like to know if there's anyway to fix this, or if it's just going to fall back to me re-partitioning the drive...

Thanks for the help in advance.

Mac OS X (10.6)

Posted on May 29, 2011 8:12 AM

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Answer 1

May 29, 2011 7:32 PM in response to Gleech

That blinking line is a "cursor." It's only supposed to show for a second or two as your iMac switches to and then starts Windows. But as you indicate here, it's not getting past the cursor..

Disk Utility can repair FAT volumes, but it cannot correct issues caused by corrupted items which, if the volume was repaired, there may be some.

Since we are dealing with a Windows boot partition, it's entirely possible that the repairs inadvertently corrupted the data Windows needs to start and run. It's also posible that Mac OS, in fixing the Boot Camp volume, overwrote the existing boot record in the Windows partition with a generic, though non-bootable version.

Windows' own CHKDSK should have been used to make the repairs rather than the OS X Disk Utility, which would have avoided this worst-case scenario in data recovery. CHKDSK has a special version of itself on the Windows disc, which may be accesed by using the Windiws Recovery Consile upon pressing R during the "Welcome to Setup" screen.

Though it appears ftom my position here that you will need to reinstall XP, it may yet be possible to recover data that hasn't been copied to the external HDD. For this task, I'd like to recommend that you start up in Mac OS for the time being, and pull any new or changed items from the Boot Camp volume except for installed software; the latter are nearly impossible to transport with reasonable accuracy, and should instead be reinstalled.

Once you have what you need, format your Boot Camp volume and reinstall Windows, this time selecting NTFS as your filesystem. NTFS is the preferred option for Windows in general, thiaks to its innate file access controls as well as the ability to compress or encrypt data "on the fly." NTFS can be read by Mac OS X, but not written from it, thus NTFS volumes cannot be altered except by Windows itself.. But it is also a requirement if you plan to upgrade your unit using Windows 7 in future.

Nate

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Answer 2

Gleech Author

Level 1

5 points

May 31, 2011 9:46 AM in response to Nathan Alden

Thanks, I took your advice in formatting it to NTFS. My External Harddrive is still FAT32, so I can still transfer items from the Mac partition to the PC partition; so I wont have any trouble there.

Despite my experience in formatting drives, I forgot to back up some stuff, so that's the only downside -_-... but anyway, thanks for the help! 🙂

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