Blank Screen

[Cyril]

Okay, so yesterday I had to reboot my computer (as one does every now and again). Rebooted after a Protowall error came up (can't remember what the error was). After going through start up process, when it would normally start loading the desktop screen went blank, as if it had gone to sleep, however monitor was not asleep, and drive had stopped running.

Running XP Pro, Athlon 1800, 80 GB HDD.

Opened up in safe mode, unistalled Protowall, and tried System Restore but would not reset to previous restore point.

Any thoughts/suggestions please.

[bigdawgfoxx]

Originally posted by Cyril@7 July 2004 - 20:37
Okay, so yesterday I had to reboot my computer (as one does every now and again). Rebooted after a Protowall error came up (can't remember what the error was). After going through start up process, when it would normally start loading the desktop screen went blank, as if it had gone to sleep, however monitor was not asleep, and drive had stopped running.

Running XP Pro, Athlon 1800, 80 GB HDD.

Opened up in safe mode, unistalled Protowall, and tried System Restore but would not reset to previous restore point.

Any thoughts/suggestions please.
Reformatt

Happend to a friends computer and I had to reformat it

[Cyril]

Yeah, that was what I was planning on. Unfortunately have about 30 Gb I want to copy first and only have a CD writer to do it with so will take a while.

Man, what happened to the stars?

Thanks anyway.

[tesco]

Stars changed to cooler, better ones (imo).


Don't format it yet, there are other possiblities to try.

Number 1) While booting up, just after the POST, but before the windows xp startup screen, tap f8 repeatedly until u get that menu for safemode, then select VGA Mode. Possible that your refresh rate (for some reason) got changed to something to high for your monitor to display.

Number 2) While booting up, just after the POST, but before the windows xp startup screen, tap f8 repeatedly until u get that menu for safemode, then select Last Known Good Config.

Let us know what happens. If this doesn't work my next idea is that u can do a repair install, rather than a complete format (unless you want to).

edit: Oh yeah, to save you the time of copying the 30gb of stuff over, you could download and install Partition Magic 8 and use it to partition your drive then put the 30gb of stuff onto the new partition. Then when you format you only format the windows partition and the partition u made (with the 30gb of stuff on it) remains unharmed.

[Cyril]

Thanks for your suggestion.

Already tried option 2 - no go. Can't download anything at present (and have no friends that can do it for me) and if I could then couldn't install anyway.

Might add that I had 2 OS installed - W2K was the other one, which I can open up in but has some other errors so definitely time for reformat. These errors won't allow me to install anything so I will just persever with copying everything over I think so I can start fresh. Just wish I had an external Hard Drive I could use.

[Storm]

well if you have multiple partitions (which you prolly have since you have multiple OSes), it isnt really a problem......... boot to win2k, and move everything you wanna keep to one partition, boot with windowsdisk, format, install OS, move files to the freshly installed partion, format other partition, install 2nd OS........

[bigdawgfoxx]

I dont like new stars at all..kinda tacky imo

[firefox]

If you had an extra hard drive you could install it and copy your data there before you format.

[abu_has_the_power]

it pays to have a spare hdd.

also, is ur cpu oced? if it is, and the ram's not keeping up with the cpu speed, it might be the reason it's not posting. i got that when i 1st oced my current system. try clearing the cmos on ur mobo

[tesco]

Originally posted by abu_has_the_power@8 July 2004 - 12:44
it pays to have a spare hdd.

also, is ur cpu oced? if it is, and the ram's not keeping up with the cpu speed, it might be the reason it's not posting. i got that when i 1st oced my current system. try clearing the cmos on ur mobo
He didn't say it wasn't posting...