POST OK, but no desktop after bootup

[Ritter197]

I have windows XP Pro and until yesterday all worked fine with 3 internal
Harddrives, 1 a SATA, 2 other WD 80 GB set to slave.

I can see the POST in starting up, also the windows XP logo but then no
desktop, no icons, just a blank, black screen.

But I also hear the windows startup sound before the latter happens.

I am absolutely puzzled and appreciate help or advice.

Thanks in advance

 

[Maincat]

Are your IDE drives set to master/slave? If they are both slaves then Oh
err Matron!

SATA doesn't use master/slave configuration.

 

[Ritter197]

I set the 2 to slaves, left the SATA alone.

Are your IDE drives set to master/slave? If they are both slaves then Oh
err Matron!

SATA doesn't use master/slave configuration.

 

[DandyDon]

Can you boot to Safe Mode and see a screen with icons?. If you can, open
Device Manager and check video adapter status. Check Event viewer for error
messages.

Without seeing it, I would guess your video drivers have been corrupted. If
you video adapter was bad, you would have no POST or Windows logo screen.

Under Safe Mode I uninstall the video drivers, reboot, and reinstall the
video drivers.
HTH