Blank Video Display

[SteveCrisp]

Hi,

When I now turn on my 5 year old Dell Latitude D800 the screen is blank,
there are no beeps, but the hard drive light flashes for 10 seconds or so.
I placed the hard drive in another dell laptop to try to boot from it, I got
a display this time but said it could noe load windows becase of a problem
with the windows\system32\ folder. I then placed the hard drive in a USB case
and plugged it into my desktop and was able to read all the files on both
partitions. Whilst starting to copy my files over the the desktop I lost my
monitor display on the desktop this time. I removed the small USB drive and
rebooted my desktop. Now I can see all the dos prompts until the windows
loading logo, then blank screen with no video signal.

Could this be a virus problem or something else?

What steps should I take to remedy these problems?

Thanks

Running Windows XP SP11 on both machines

 

[Brian A.]

Hi,

When I now turn on my 5 year old Dell Latitude D800 the screen is blank,
there are no beeps, but the hard drive light flashes for 10 seconds or
so.
I placed the hard drive in another dell laptop to try to boot from it, I
got
a display this time but said it could noe load windows becase of a problem
with the windows\system32\ folder. I then placed the hard drive in a USB
case
and plugged it into my desktop and was able to read all the files on both
partitions. Whilst starting to copy my files over the the desktop I lost
my
monitor display on the desktop this time. I removed the small USB drive
and
rebooted my desktop. Now I can see all the dos prompts until the windows
loading logo, then blank screen with no video signal.

Could this be a virus problem or something else?

What steps should I take to remedy these problems?

Thanks

Running Windows XP SP11 on both machines

If you can get to the boot menu you could try booting to the "Last good
configuration" and if that fails:
How to start the System Restore tool at a command prompt in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/304449/

Unless the hard drives going bad, it could be hardware or software
related.
Can you boot to Safe Mode? If yes it's either a hardware or software
issue, I would check into the hardware first for any device drivers that may
be corrupted. If you recently installed any devices or updated any device
drivers, remove the device and or any drivers. If you recently installed or
updated any software, uninstall if applicable said software.

Also see:
How to perform a clean boot in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310353/en-us

How to perform advanced clean-boot troubleshooting in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316434/en-us

How to troubleshoot by using the System Configuration utility in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310560/en-us

How to troubleshoot unknown devices that are listed in Device Manager in
Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314464/en-us

Troubleshooting Device Conflicts with Device Manager
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310126/

Explanation of error codes generated by Device Manager in Microsoft Windows
XP Professional
(Also applies to XP Pro x64 and XP Home)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310123

How to manage devices in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/283658/en-us

If all of the above fails and you keep updated backups for the system,
restore the system from the most recent backup before the issue appeared.


--

Brian A. Sesko { MS MVP_Shell/User }
Conflicts start where information lacks.
http://basconotw.mvps.org/

Suggested posting do's/don'ts: http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
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