I have the same problem. But in my case the hard drive get invisible, and
the system cann't boot from the visible DvD. I get the ugly message insert
boot disk if you wonna use me .
Bios setup stay accessible. I suspect something wrong with IDE hardware
Any suggestions ?
Thankx.
Hi all,

I have an inspiron 3800 which will boot very occasionally but most of
the time when I turn it on it does nothing.

by nothing, I mean the fan starts and the screen appears to be in 80x25
text mode with just a cursor blinking in the top left corner. there is
no bios screen and no beeps. control-alt-del does nothing, nor does the
setup button or f2 etc.

on the rare occasions it does boot (no idea why) it is stable.

any clues please? it's going in the skip if I can't figure it out...

Andy