black screen in windows 2000

[mrsttn]

I have a 600 MHZ celeron processor with windows 98 on it. I decided to rebuild it with windows 2000. The rebuild went fine, however, win 2000 had progrems with my graphics display, because the screen came up distorted on the upper half portion of the the monitor. I then went into safe mode during boot thinking I could look around for the kind of graphics I had.

The white "win2000 professional" logo came up with 4 labels "safe mode" appearing on all 4 corners of my display. However. the system hungs forever and did not response to any key sequence. I then unpluged the power.

When I power it up, I got a black screen. Don't know what to do. Please help. Unless the celeron board has a built in graphics card, I don't see any graphics card installed in my PC at the moment.

 

[zelko961]

First check power cables,if that is ok,(display is alive)than boot from CD and install win2k full install again,with overwritting existing installation.
If not tell us more details.

 

[mrsttn]

Thanks for the suggestion. However, my PC did not boot up when I inserted the window 2000 installation CD in the drive. I still got the black screen, and it would not show me the option to boot from CD-Rom.

I double checked my monitor by plugging it into another working PC and the monitor worked just fine.
What else can I do?

BTW, since I unplugged the PC the first time when it hung, and plugged the power cord back in again, my power light on the front is on steadily. Another words, the PC is already on and making noises when I connect the power cord into it every time. Pushing the front on/off button has no effects.

Usually, when you turn of the PC, normally or by unplugging power, the next time when you boot it up, the on/off button should be at "off" position with no light, but mine is on every time with a steady green light.

 

[pweegar]

Number 1: Unless your pc is hung up, or shows the Blue Screen of Death, NEVER NEVER NEVER just unplug the pc. With so many open programs/processes, you never know what may get trashed.

Having said that, when you turn your pc on, do you get anything on the screen, like the bios version and date and a memory check? Can you see them? Try shutting of fyour pc by holding the power button in for several seconds. It SHOULD power itself off. Leave the power off for a short time (say a minute or two). Then power back on. If you still get a black screen,I would suspect that something has shorted your graphics adapter. U may need to reboot with a DOS floppy disk. Then I would delete any parttions, create new ones and reformat in FAT (which u can later resize, onvert using Parttion Magic), then try installing Win2K. Make sure your bootable DOS diskette has mscdex (or whatever it is) along with a cd-rom driver so that dos sees the cd. Then run setup to install Win2k.

Lastly, your pc should start or not depending on where the power switch was set at at the time u pulled the plug.
IOW, if the power was on, plugging the power cord back in should start the pc.

 

[Marcs41]

I take it there is nothing important on there anyway, so, just reinstall it.
To make your PC boot with the CD, make sure your bios is set to do so.
That said, is the screen even black when you boot?
if so, you may need to replace the graphics card, it could be it blew because of a wrong setting.

Marc
[sub]If 'something' 'somewhere' gives 'some' error, expect random guesses or no replies at all. Please specify details.
Free Tip: The F1 Key does NOT destroy your PC![/sub]

 

[mrsttn]

Thank You, Pweegar and marcs41, for the suggestions. Yes I get your point, and learn the lesson the hard way. I will never, never never unplug my PC again.

I was able to turn off my PC, waited 5 minutes, and rebooted again. Still getting the black screen. Literally black whole with nothing whatsoever on the screen!!! No bios info, no date, and no memory check.

I don't have a bootable DOS Floppy. How can I get one? I do have another PC running win2k. Can I create a DOS floppy from that PC and use it on the PC with current problem? You sound like my hard drive is gone also. Is it??

My graphics card is built in into the mother board. Can I just get any graphics card and install it in my PC before booting it up again? I will get an old graphics card and do just this, however, just wondering, would it be in conflict with the graphics card embedded in the mother board because of the Plug and Play feature in win2k?

 

[Marcs41]

For a bootable floppy, goto

http://www.bootdisk.com

Yes, just install any other old card to test, it will normally not conflict, but it could be it does not pick it up, since the default is the build in, and you cant see anything there.
However, the bios boot seq. should appear, if it does, you know the build in is DEAD.

 

[beernut]

Do you get a POST test (beep from the internal computer speaker) indication when you power on? If not, the power supply may be gone.

 

[mrsttn]

I installed an old graphics card and was able to boot up my PC. Apparently the built-in video card was grilled so having a separate cideo card now helps solve the problem, so I didn't need a boot disk after all.

My Device manager is now complaining about missing Multimedia Controller Driver, but that's another problem entirely different from the old one I was having.

I guess I'll go to compaq site to look for a driver since my PC is a Pressario. Thank you so much for all your help.