Desktop
Hi all;
I've got an older Compaq w/XP Home SP2 and an add-in ATI/Nvidia card. Suddenly, it locks up when the agp440.sys driver attempts to load. I only know this because that's where the display stops during a Safe-Mode boot.
There haven't been any changes to the computer in months. Any suggestions?
TIA
by gary56789
Video drivers are easily corrupted.
Delete the current driver and reinstall from your original media (CD or download from the Internet). Be sure to specify where the reinstall gets the driver from or it will just use a copy of the old file.
by nilt
Quick point: there's no such thing as an ATI/NVidia card to my knowlege. ATI and NVidia are competitors. That's not so much related but ...
If you can't get to Safe Mode that's pretty severe. If there's another video on board, pull the add on card and see if it boots. When a card dies on a physical level it can often hang the boot. Make sure you power off and pull the power plug before removing any hardware.
If that doesn't help, you are likely in need of a re-install. Keep in mind that the Documents and Settings folder will be deleted and recreated during an install. If you don't have all your data backed up you'll lose it.
The easiest way to back your data up would be to install that HD as a slave in a second PC and copy data over. If you can't do so, you could get into the Recovery Console and rename the whole folder to OldDocs before installing to protect your data. If you don'tknow how to do this, let us know. Someone will post steps if I don't; I'm off to a client's now.
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