Display drivers in XP

[rodman]

I haven't done this in a while.
I had to replace the screen in my HP mini laptop and after it didn't look quite right. I went into hardware manager and deleted the display drivers figuring that windows would automatically load whatever drivers were needed when booting up as it always does. Problem is, it didn't. Now I have boot up screens etc., I can even get into setup and it sounds like it is booting up but there is nothing on the screen after it goes into windows. I can't remember how to get into dos to load a new driver and can't do anything because the screen is blank. I tried hooking up another monitor but of course I'm not set up in properties for the second monitor.
Appreciate any help.

 

[vacunita]

Have you tried Safe Mode?
Laptops usually have a key combination to send the signal out to the external monitor, have you tried that. usually the fn key plus a function key like F5 or something.





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Phil AKA Vacunita
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Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

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[rodman]

how do I get to safemode?
I'll try the function thing.... didn't know about that
thanks

 

[vacunita]

Press F8 when the computer is starting before XP begins to load, and you should get the boot menu, Select "Safe mode" from there,

----------------------------------
Phil AKA Vacunita
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

Behind the Web, Tips and Tricks for Web Development.

http://behindtheweb.blogspot.com/

 

[rodman]

Haven't been able to get back to this for a few days.
I used f8 to get into dos and then it starts listing the files as if I were running a directory. When the page fills up it freezes and won't do anything else. I also tried to get it to boot up in safe mode and that did the same thing the normal mode did. The screen shows the boot up sequence, and the beginning of opening windows but when it goes blank as if windows is coming up it never comes back. You can hear an occasional click as if a window of some sort is opening wanting a response but you can't see anything to be able to respond to it. I'm stuck.

 

[cdogg]

Give it a few moments after the screen goes blank for the system to completely boot up. The HP key combo to switch monitor outputs on most HP laptops is FN + F4 (hold the FN key down and press F4). There are three settings you toggle when doing this - laptop, external, laptop + external. So you may have to press it several times for it to change to the correct mode.

By the way, you should see a monitor symbol on a different function key if F4 is not the right one.


**Important**
There's a chance that Windows just isn't booting all the way up as indicated by it freezing during safe mode. You may want to throw in a spare hard drive and attempt to load Windows fresh. If that works, then you'll know to attempt a repair on the original hard drive or just copy over your files from it.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Einstein
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[vacunita]

I tend to agree with cdogg. Perhaps performing a repair install on it may solve the issues. This would preserve all your files and installed programs while resetting the OS.

Also if you can boot onto an XP CD recovery console you could try to run a chkdsk on the drive see if it can find and fix any files that may have problems.

----------------------------------
Phil AKA Vacunita
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

Behind the Web, Tips and Tricks for Web Development.

http://behindtheweb.blogspot.com/

 

[goombawaho]

It could be running a CHKDSK when starting safe mode. Give it 20 minutes and/or check the hard drive activity light to see if it's active when the screen goes blank.

When it does a CHKDSK while starting in safe mode, you have no idea from the screen what is going on. In this case, you must just wait to see if it will boot eventually.

If it never boots, you have a windows corruption problem or hardware problem.