Storage

Ask something
Question Locked

XP wont start- hangs on black screen.

0 helpful
2 replies

by ashorner

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.

Running Dell Dimension 3000 PC. XP home.
No recent additions to PC.

Upon startup today the PC loads briefly with DEll bar across btm of screen.
Then the screen goes black- and remains black.
I have tried to start from CD Rom- by changing order of startup in BIOS.
No luck- screen says >press any key to boot from CD.
>Setup is inspecting your computers hardware configuration.

After that the screen remains black.

I notice that when I hold down on/ off button on front of Pc the PC immediately switches off- rather than take few seconds.
All 4 diodes are green on the back of the PC

2 replies

by jim_maclachlan

You didn't mention making any changes, so I'll assume you didn't. Sounds to me like some component is having a bad day. Sometimes by letting them power completely down & cool off, they'll get back to work. I usually see this with older PC's.

Pull the power cord & reset any cards, memory & connections inside that you can. Spray it out with air. Then try to boot it again.

If it still doesn't work, try resetting the 'Fast Boot' option in the BIOS. Pull any extra cards you have & leave them out - again, with the power unplugged. Plug it back up & try booting again.

Last, I'd pull the hard drive & put it into a different PC & see if it actually mounts. Try turning off any onboard video, audio & such. Also, try booting the original PC off just a CD without a hard drive. Grab a copy of Clonezilla or BartPE or something. I'd do the former since it takes a pretty good look at the basic hardware & you might pick up some hints as to what is wrong.

This discussion is closed to new replies.