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Hardrive Horror!

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4 replies

by beasleywilliam

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Ok, so one day I use my system restore(WinXP Pro)and my screen never comes up again. When I reboot my system I get the XP splash screen, then a black screen that only the pointer for my mouse will move on.

Things I've tried:

1. Boot in safe mode. - same problem only the screen says safe mode in the corners.

2. Unplugged all wires and made sure connections were tight. - same outcome

3. Opened tower and cleaned all internal pieces with airgun. - no dice

4. Made the 6 bootable recovery XP disks on floppy. - after the sixth disk, won't take my password. won't take any password

5. Ordered an OEM Windows XP HOME disk to try an change the OS all together. - Reads the disk, but doesn't do anything.

6. Tried to change BIOS to boot in VGA mode. - no dice.

Any other suggestions? Should I try a new video card?

Thanks

4 replies

by advancedgeek

boot into recovery mode (off of your xp cd), and try doing various fixes like chkdsk /r, or fixboot. You can do a /? to find several options. If this doesn't work, try reseating your video card. There are lots more things I would try but too many to list. Try these and report on your findings.

by jamesrl

Install XP on it. Make your initial HD the slave drive. Copy anything you need off the initial HD, then format, install OS, copy files back and start again.

You either have a serious file corruption issues with the OS on your HD or a bad HD. Putting in a known good HD will help troubleshoot.

James

by deepsand

This is a tech. problem, in search of a solution.

It properly belongs in "Technical Q&A," not in "Discussions." There you will be more likely to get the attention of those seeking questions that they might answer.

You should re-post there..

Thank you.

by strebor77

Do you have onboard video. If so, use the onboard Video. I have seen this occur with the Nvidia 4200 and 5200 Chipsets. I Have not been able to explain it but this is what I ran into at home. My PC didn;t have onboard video, so I put in an old ATI 4MB card and all was ok. This problem occurred with a fresh install of XP Pro.

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