Dell 8400 Refurbished by with WinXP Pro preinstalled will not boot up. Gets past Dell XP Logo, then goes to blank screen with curser...however, keyboard locks up and can not get any further? What's th

You are asking for trouble by placing programs that Windows uses on the other drive. You are better off using the 1 TB drive as a system drive. Sounds like your OS is corrupted.

If you hit <F12> key upon boot-up and the monitor displays a boot menu, then you probably have an issue with your XP software. Meaning that you may have to re-install XP (by the way, XP is no longer supported).

That cursor indicated that the BIOS can't find an Windows installed on the hdd. Since even the recovery partition appears to be inaccessible the only thing left is to reinstall it using the recovery cd that should have come with it when you bought it If you don't have it you can order it from Dell.

You can try to boot to safemode. When you turn on system as soon as you see Dell logo keep tapping F8,select Safemode under advance boot option. If you we're able to log in to your account you can try to uninstall video driver and restart the system to normal mode then reinstall the video driver.
If you we're not able to boot to safemode , you can try to connect to external monitor toggle to FN+F8 if still not showing anything might be a bad video card.

Hi, your will need to delete your windows XP re format that part of your hard drive, then re install XP

have u tried resetting it (u may loose it all)

Did the diagnostics pass the RAM and the hard drive.
You should check the BIOS settings to see if the hard disk is detected, if possible reset the BIOS back to the default settings and see if the computer boots up.
If not :-
Then it appears that the operating system is either corrupted or system files were deleted or infected with viruses.
Your only option is to do a operating system repair or a complete new install of Windows.
I recommend you do a new install.

Sounds like an issue with the software or a windows update that caused it. Seems to occur more with versions of windows that are not genuine.. Have you tried booting from the XP disk, running microsoft recovery console, and then running chkdsk /r

Hopefully that will fix it.. Otherwise you might have to re-install windows.

hmmm..not too happy..sounds like your video card is not too good...try it in safe mode(F8) and then check the video card in control panel, then system, then device manager. make sure driver is clean.

got backup?

It sure is possible.
I would take it back to them and demand that WINXP Pro is put back in there and it boot correctly
They saved about 50 bucks putting in WINXP Home.

Sounds like a bunch of rookies trying to pull a fast one.