Black Screen at Start-Up

[TJM]

I have read through some of the other threads on this problem and I will
admit that I am a novice at this and that is why I am asking yet another
question.

Have a Dell Dimension B110 Desktop approx 3yrs old. Running Windows XP Home
edition--not sure what service pack but it does run the automatic updates
regularly.

The PC was running fine last Saturday when my wife and I went out. My son
claims he only went to www.aq.com--Adventure Quest Worlds--some game
web-site. In any event when we attempted to start the computer on Sunday
morning, it goes through the Dell Bios start-up and then the Windows XP
screen appears but before it boots to start-up, the screen goes black. The
cursor will move around if you move the mouse but the computer will not
respond to anything including Control, Alt, Delete.

If I start it up and hit F-2 or F-12 during the Bios start-up I can get to
the Set Up menu and the Boot Menu respectively. It is currently at the Boot
Device Menu. What if anything should I do from this screen?

I should note that I do not have a good back-up and my wife has some
important work files on the hard drive.

Suggestions?

IF the suggestion is to take it to a professional computer repair shop (by
my read of the threads, Best Buy is not a good option) what is the best way
to find a competent repair center?

THANKS!

Sorry for the rambling message.

 

[Ron Badour]

You can try booting in safe mode or using the last known good configuration
to see what that does.

--
Regards

Ron Badour
MS MVP
Windows Desktop Experience

 

[TJM]

Ron,

I just tried that and got the same results. The computer acts like it is
going to boot up but still ends up at the black screen. Any other ideas?

Thanks!

Tim

 

[Malke]

Ron,

I just tried that and got the same results. The computer acts like it is
going to boot up but still ends up at the black screen. Any other ideas?

The first thing to do is retrieve the important data. When this is over,
create and implement a backup strategy because Stuff Always Happens.

You don't need to get into Windows to retrieve your data. Here are a few
suggestions as to how:

1. Pull the drive and slave it in a computer running a working install of
XP/Vista. Depending on the target drive's characteristics, you may need a
drive adapter; i.e., laptop-to-IDE or a SATA controller card, etc. A
usb/firewire external drive enclosure works very well, too. Use the working
Windows Explorer to copy the data to the rescue system's hard drive and
then burn the data to cd or dvd.

2. Often XP/Vista will not boot with a slaved drive that has a damaged file
system. In that case, boot the target computer with either a Bart's PE or a
Linux live cd such as Knoppix and retrieve the data that way. Here is
general information on using Knoppix for this:

You will need a computer with two cd drives, one of which is a cd/dvd-rw OR
a usb thumb drive with enough capacity to hold your data OR an external
usb/firewire hard drive formatted FAT32 (not NTFS)*. To get Knoppix, you
need a computer with a fast Internet connection and third-party burning
software. Download the Knoppix .iso and create your bootable cd. Then boot
with it and it will be able to see the Windows files. If you are using the
usb thumb drive or the external hard drive, right-click on its icon (on the
Desktop) to get its properties and uncheck the box that says "Read Only".
Then click on it to open it. Note that the default mouse action in the
window manager used by Knoppix (KDE) is a single click to open instead of
the traditional MS Windows' double-click. If you want to burn CD/DVDs, use
the K3b program.

*My understanding is that you can now write to an NTFS partition from Linux.
If you wish to do this, Google for instructions.

http://www.knoppix.net
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ - Bart's PE Builder

Once your data is safely retrieved, you can test the hardware to make sure
it is good and if it is, a Repair Install might help. If not, a Clean
Install is in your future.

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm - Repair Install
How-To
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html - Clean Install How-To
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Reinstalling_Windows - What
you will need on-hand

A good way to find a qualified computer tech is to ask friends, family,
colleagues for recommendations.

Malke

 

[Paul]

Malke wrote:

*My understanding is that you can now write to an NTFS partition from Linux.

Malke

When I tried that the other day, something called NTFS-3G started
to run. That is a user space program that accesses NTFS partitions,
unlike FAT32 and EXT2 which are handled by "mount" in kernel space.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS-3G

When you click a disk icon on the Knoppix desktop, the filesystems
are normally mounted read-only. With that NTFS-3G stuff, because
it isn't the same as the mount command, you'd have to figure out
how to do the equivalent of "mount -o rw ...", so you could write
to NTFS. I didn't get that far, and stopped at being able to
read from my partition. (It was just easier at the time, to put my
output on a FAT32 partition, rather than learn something new )

What's really needed for the OP, is a bulletproof application with
a nice GUI, to aid in copying the files off. But I don't know of
anything that doesn't involve "hair loss" or money, to get working.
Plugging the disk into a second computer, is just a lot easier,
even if it means some screwdriver work.

I even downloaded DSL (Damn Small Linux) a few minutes ago,
because it is a 50MB distro, and the "damn" thing didn't boot
on my machine (VIA chipset problem). By comparison, the larger
Knoppix distro, seems to have better hardware compatibility.
The only issue I've had with Knoppix, is on one machine the
Ethernet interface won't come up on its own.

Paul

 

[windmap]

I have read through some of the other threads on this problem and I will
admit that I am a novice at this and that is why I am asking yet another
question.

Have a Dell Dimension B110 Desktop approx 3yrs old. Running Windows XP Home
edition--not sure what service pack but it does run the automatic updates
regularly.

The PC was running fine last Saturday when my wife and I went out. My son
claims he only went towww.aq.com--AdventureQuest Worlds--some game
web-site. In any event when we attempted to start the computer on Sunday
morning, it goes through the Dell Bios start-up and then the Windows XP
screen appears but before it boots to start-up, the screen goes black. The
cursor will move around if you move the mouse but the computer will not
respond to anything including Control, Alt, Delete.

If I start it up and hit F-2 or F-12 during the Bios start-up I can get to
the Set Up menu and the Boot Menu respectively. It is currently at the Boot
Device Menu. What if anything should I do from this screen?

I should note that I do not have a good back-up and my wife has some
important work files on the hard drive.

Suggestions?

IF the suggestion is to take it to a professional computer repair shop (by
my read of the threads, Best Buy is not a good option) what is the best way
to find a competent repair center?

THANKS!

Sorry for the rambling message.

In addition to others help try this also
You need Operating system media to do this

Running Chkdsk from the Recovery Console
Source : http://vlaurie.com/computers2/Articles/chkdsk.htm
After Running CHKDSK /P run fixboot command then restart

Also Try the FIXMBR from Recovery console.

 

[windmap]

I have read through some of the other threads on this problem and I will
admit that I am a novice at this and that is why I am asking yet another
question.

Have a Dell Dimension B110 Desktop approx 3yrs old. Running Windows XP Home
edition--not sure what service pack but it does run the automatic updates
regularly.

The PC was running fine last Saturday when my wife and I went out. My son
claims he only went towww.aq.com--AdventureQuest Worlds--some game
web-site. In any event when we attempted to start the computer on Sunday
morning, it goes through the Dell Bios start-up and then the Windows XP
screen appears but before it boots to start-up, the screen goes black. The
cursor will move around if you move the mouse but the computer will not
respond to anything including Control, Alt, Delete.

If I start it up and hit F-2 or F-12 during the Bios start-up I can get to
the Set Up menu and the Boot Menu respectively. It is currently at the Boot
Device Menu. What if anything should I do from this screen?

I should note that I do not have a good back-up and my wife has some
important work files on the hard drive.

Suggestions?

IF the suggestion is to take it to a professional computer repair shop (by
my read of the threads, Best Buy is not a good option) what is the best way
to find a competent repair center?

THANKS!

Sorry for the rambling message.

In addition to others help try this also
You need Operating system media to do this

Running Chkdsk from the Recovery Console
Source : http://vlaurie.com/computers2/Articles/chkdsk.htm
After Running CHKDSK /P run fixboot command then restart

Also Try the FIXMBR from Recovery console.

 

[Malke]

Malke wrote:


When I tried that the other day, something called NTFS-3G started
to run. That is a user space program that accesses NTFS partitions,
unlike FAT32 and EXT2 which are handled by "mount" in kernel space.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS-3G

When you click a disk icon on the Knoppix desktop, the filesystems
are normally mounted read-only. With that NTFS-3G stuff, because
it isn't the same as the mount command, you'd have to figure out
how to do the equivalent of "mount -o rw ...", so you could write
to NTFS. I didn't get that far, and stopped at being able to
read from my partition. (It was just easier at the time, to put my
output on a FAT32 partition, rather than learn something new )

What's really needed for the OP, is a bulletproof application with
a nice GUI, to aid in copying the files off. But I don't know of
anything that doesn't involve "hair loss" or money, to get working.
Plugging the disk into a second computer, is just a lot easier,
even if it means some screwdriver work.

I even downloaded DSL (Damn Small Linux) a few minutes ago,
because it is a 50MB distro, and the "damn" thing didn't boot
on my machine (VIA chipset problem). By comparison, the larger
Knoppix distro, seems to have better hardware compatibility.
The only issue I've had with Knoppix, is on one machine the
Ethernet interface won't come up on its own.

I usually use Knoppix and find it works very well. The KDE gui is similar
enough to Windows that a non-Linux user can find his way around. I never
mount the target drive/partition from Knoppix, preferring to retrieve data
onto either a USB thumb drive or a FAT-32 formatted external hard drive.

If you need to actually write to the target drive/partition (not necessary
naturally if all you're doing is retrieving data), I would prefer not to
take a chance with Linux NTFS drivers but would boot with an ERD-like
rescue disk or a Bart's PE.

Frankly, I think all of this is going to be beyond the OP's skill and he
should take the machine to a professional. I'm not saying that to be rude,
but he did start off saying he's a novice.

For a novice, the best solution is to either slave the target drive or put
it in a USB external hard drive. Even then, a certain skill level is
required to do that and to find one's way around the file system to pull
the data. What would be nothing for us might be hard for him. We just can't
know.

Malke

 

[Terry R.]

The date and time was Wednesday, December 17, 2008 6:19:01 PM, and on a
whim, TJM pounded out on the keyboard:

I have read through some of the other threads on this problem and I will
admit that I am a novice at this and that is why I am asking yet another
question.

Have a Dell Dimension B110 Desktop approx 3yrs old. Running Windows XP Home
edition--not sure what service pack but it does run the automatic updates
regularly.

The PC was running fine last Saturday when my wife and I went out. My son
claims he only went to www.aq.com--Adventure Quest Worlds--some game
web-site. In any event when we attempted to start the computer on Sunday
morning, it goes through the Dell Bios start-up and then the Windows XP
screen appears but before it boots to start-up, the screen goes black. The
cursor will move around if you move the mouse but the computer will not
respond to anything including Control, Alt, Delete.

If I start it up and hit F-2 or F-12 during the Bios start-up I can get to
the Set Up menu and the Boot Menu respectively. It is currently at the Boot
Device Menu. What if anything should I do from this screen?

I should note that I do not have a good back-up and my wife has some
important work files on the hard drive.

Suggestions?

IF the suggestion is to take it to a professional computer repair shop (by
my read of the threads, Best Buy is not a good option) what is the best way
to find a competent repair center?

THANKS!

Sorry for the rambling message.

On one network I admin, I had a Dimension 9200 that went to a black
screen on Sunday. It happened when it was turned on for the first time
after the Windows Updates last week (they installed on shutdown). After
two attempts, they were able to bring it up, and I couldn't replicate it
yesterday while onsite.

I'm wondering if your computer was restarted for the first time since
the updates, on Sunday, and whether there might be an issue with one of
the updates released.

It's been a long time since I've had a workstation get trashed from an
update, but unfortunately it has happened.

--
Terry R.

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