Screen shows black screen 3

[jediwarrior]

Hi all,
I have a Dell Dimension 4300. the problem I am experiencing is when I turn it on, it reads the BIOS ok and then starts to load up the hard drive. I see the XP logo on the screen, but right after that the screen goes black, it shows the mouse in the middle of the screen which is froze, and nothing else happens. I have given it 20 minutes in which to load up but doesn't.
Does this seem like the hard drive is bad or could it just be the software? Should I reload XP again? How can i trouble shoot this to know exactly what is the problem?

Thanks

Jediwarrior

 

[edfair]

It is likely that you have display driver issues.

Will it start in safe mode [F8] during boot and select safe mode. If it starts in safe mode your display adapter works in VGA and your issue is probably in resetting the display to something the adapter can't handle.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[G0AOZ]

Do as Ed suggests with Safe Mode. If it still freezes it could be a hard drive issue, like bad or unreadable blocks.

Do you have data, documents, etc., on the drive which need backing up? Tackle this before attempting any repairs on the drive.

ROGER - G0AOZ.

 

[goombawaho]

If NO BOOT still in safe mode, best to get the Ultimate Boot CD download and burn it to a CD, boot from it and run the manufacturer's hard drive test on it.

You can see which brand hard drive you have by looking in the BIOS or by running one of the generic HDD test tools on the UBCD if it's cryptic in the BIOS.

 

[cdogg]

At the F8 boot menu, you can also select Step-by-Step confirmation which may give you a clue as to what point in the boot process Windows is stalling.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Einstein
[tab][navy]For posting policies, click [/navy]here.

 

[jediwarrior]

Hi all,
Thank you for your support. The problem is resolved. It turns out that the OS was at fault. I did the f8 but nothing happened in there. The page was still blank with the mouse froze in the middle of the screen. I did see f8 on the screen though. I also tried the step by step which failed.
So I though I should reinstall the OS and everything is working fine. Thank you for your tips which helped me to make a decision on what to do.

Thanks
Jediwarrior

 

[edfair]

Actually, it is kind of funny. It appears Microsoft may have corrupted something with a security update that causes a black screen of death.
One good thing noted at one site: we can still call it a BSOD.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[manhunter2826]

You got it ed. Affects both W7 and Vista.

http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2009/12/01/microsoft-probes-black-screen-of-death/

 

[cdogg]

Thanks for the link manhunter. I'll be interested to see if there will be any official word from Mi¢ro$oft on the matter...

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Einstein
[tab][navy]For posting policies, click [/navy]here.

 

[edfair]

MS denies and the original blog accepts that they were hasty.

The operating systems have their parts so interconnected that it could be the proverbial "buttefly in Mexico flapping it's wings" that causes it. Very suspicious that there seems to have been an outbreak in the problem, even though MS says their support hasn't seen any evidence of it.

Based on previous things that have gone wrong I will still tend to suppose that MS really did something in an update and possibly corrected it in the next. Wouldn't be the first time it happened.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.