[NTLUG:Discuss] blank screen with blinking cursor in upper left

[Fred James]

>>All
>>The symptom is "blank screen with blinking cursor in upper left" on boot 
>>- also cannot ssh to the box
>>Action so far - I figured now was as good a time as any to move the box 
>>from Mandrak 9.1 to Mandriva 2007 - install went well, video looked good 
>>all through it - on reboot however, returned the same symptom as above.
>>
>>Thank you in advance for any help you may be able to offer
>>Regards
>>Fred James
>>
>>    
>>
All
The answer on this one seems to have been the hard drive - even though 
the hard drive was "visible" to the install.  I reinstalled putting / 
and MBR on hde1 and bingo, off and running.  Right now the problem seems 
to be that the system (I reverted to 9.1) doesn't really like / and MBR 
on hde1, so tomorrow I plan to either remove hda (the suspected problem 
drive), and make the current hde become hda - or at least swap some 
cables - we'll see how it goes - and then install 2007 on the new hda.  
Even if nothing else, I suppose I may learn something.  By the way, (the 
old) hda was visible to the system after putting / and MBR on hde1

My current suspecian is that the first sector of the old hda is toast - 
does that, or anything similar, make sense?
Regards
Fred James