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I have a Gateway laptop model MX 35604. It was extremely slow and full of spyware so I decided to re-format the hard drive with the original CD. I did a complete format and everything seemed to work okay but when I rebooted it is a black screen with a white triangle that is the mouse. I have an extra hard drive and went through the process and the exact same thing happens.

The following are things I have noticed:

  1. When it boots from the CD it appears normal.
  2. It is when trying to boot the OS from the hard drive that the issue occurs.
  3. This computer wasn't used for over a year and I noticed that the time and date in the BIOS settings was back in 1999. So it appears that I lost the BIOS battery power.
  4. When I first boot, I do get the Windows XP splash screen but it then goes black with the white mouse triangle.
  5. I can boot from the CD and I can get into the BIOS settings.

It is almost like the video driver is not being recognized when booting from the hard drive. The computer worked fine until I tried to re-format.

I think I might have done something to the BIOS. Any suggestions on what is happening and how can I fix this?

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  • You can boot the system in safe mode?
    – stderr
    Jul 20, 2013 at 14:45
  • Yes but the screen is black with white triangle. It does state "safe Mode" I believe in each cornor of the screen. There are a number of options: safe with prompt, safe with networking , restore etc. I can see all of those commands.
    – Mike D
    Jul 20, 2013 at 14:56
  • In the screen where it says safe with prompt, safe with networking, etc, what happens when you go to start windows normally?
    – user13267
    Jul 22, 2013 at 9:53

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