flashing cursor in xp

December 16, 2006 9:30 AM

Flashing cursor problem (XP). Easily replicated, easily worked around, but highly annoying.

I've got two hard PATA hard drives. 0 has the OS and programs, 1 has music and backed up files. Everytime I restart, I get the flashing cursor just before Windows comes up. This is what I do to work around it, every time: I unplug the power from HD 1. I restart. Windows comes up fine. I shut down. I plug back in the power to HD1 and restart. Windows now comes up fine with both drives.

I use the computer for a while (typically a few days) and then restart. Flashing cursor. Unplug HD1, restart, shutdown, plug in HD1, restart, fixed. Ad infinitum.

I know flashing cursor problems can have many causes, but I'm hoping the very specific nature of how this is replicated and (temporarily) resolved will help someone point me to a permanent fix.

posted by stupidsexyFlanders to computers & internet (5 comments total)

Sounds like an IRQ problem perhaps.

I have to ask; what's your reason for restarting winXP every few days? I keep mine running for weeks/months at at a time without performance decrease. Unless newly installed software requires a restart of course.

I would start by going into the device manager when your cursor is flashing and viewing all the IRQ's and what hardware it is assigned to. Then do your fix to stop the flashing, and compares the IRQ's then.

If they are differently assigned, then you know that's the problem. Some motherboards will let you manually assign IRQ's, in that case you would set it to the same way it was when your cursor didn't flash.
posted by Sonic_Molson at 9:42 AM on December 16, 2006

As I noted, I get the flashing cursor just before windows comes up. So there's no way to get into the device manager when the cursor is flashing. Sorry I wasn't more clear. I'll see if I can see/set IRQs in the bios.

"every few days" was a shortcut phrase. Occasionally it has to be restarted, and when it does, I experience the problem I described.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 2:08 PM on December 16, 2006

1. Change the cable - pick another power supply connector. It could be faulty.

2. Change the IDE cable.

3. If at all possible, take the HD to another PC and see if you can repeat the error on the other machine. If so, then the HD likely has a fault in its electronics.

An IRQ fault is possible, but I'm betting your drive isn't spinning up properly. That points to either bad power or a bad drive.
posted by disclaimer at 6:21 PM on December 16, 2006

If drive 0 is a Western Digital Caviar, it's almost certainly jumpered wrong. The WD drives support two kinds of Master jumpering: Master, and Master/Single. The one you want is Master/Single. What WD calls Master is what everybody else calls "Master with non-ATA compatible slave" and using it causes long, long delays before the drive is properly recognized after being reset.
posted by flabdablet at 12:47 AM on December 17, 2006

And if neither drive is a WD, it's probably Cable Select going wrong. I hate Cable Select. I always jumper drive 0 as a master and connect it to the end of the cable, and drive 1 as a slave and connect it to the middle of the cable, and then everything always works. Doing anything else sometimes fails.
posted by flabdablet at 12:48 AM on December 17, 2006