windows xp now boots to "black screen"

I've been having nothing but problems with my pc this past couple of
weeks...

I just attempted to install the new Nvidia drivers (latest download
from nvidia.com)..

So - I uninstalled the current driver, went back to the standard
adapter, and rebooted. Then installed the new drivers.

It wouldn't let me select any mode other than 8*600 and 1024*768.
Adaptor information under control panel was just saying unknown chip
etc..

The games and demos I tried wouldn't run at all, DXDIAG reported "no
version of direct x found", yet the file list displayed several files,
so I uninstalled the newly installed driver so I could go back to the
previous version..

Only then - windows xp boots to a black screen - the loading screen
appears fine, but then it plays the startup tone and a black screen...
I can tell it's doing other stuff, but it just won't display anything!

I tried going into safe mode, but it wouldn't let me - it just displays
a list of files and gets stuck at one for about a minute and reboots,
also "enasble vga mode" boots to a black screen..

any ideas what I can do?

'Dan' wrote, in part:
I've been having nothing but problems with my pc this past couple of
weeks...
_____

More and exact information is necessary.
A good start would be to include all information in the body of the message,
and not leave any orphan details in the subject line alone.
And what Operating System do you use? XP Professional or XP Home?
And what computer do you have? Model number? Home built? Hardware?
And exactly what display adapter do you have?
Did you try installing Direct X? IF DXDIAG reports 'no version of direct x
found', don't you think that you should reinstall Direct X? Just because
some files are listed (what files?) dosen't mean direct x is properly
installed.


Some thoughts that may help:
Direct X is not part of the display adapter driver.
Safe mode does not require a driver.
If your system will not boot into safe mode then you most likely have a
corrupt operating system; is there anything you might have done that could
corrupt the system (like overclocking that results in a PCI bus speed higher
than ~ 37 MHz?)

There are diagnostics that can be run using the OS CD, especially if you
made a recovery information disk.

At any rate, you should prepare for a more serious problem than just a
display adapter that won't work; you may be on the way to losing important
data. I suggest that you try swapping in a known good display adapter and
using safe mode to diagnose the problem. If you can't boot into safe mode
with another card, then you should try installing a second instance of the
operating system in another partition (preferably another drive), back up
your essential data, and try diagnosing the problem from the new
installation. If you CAN boot into safe mode with another card, then there
your are!

Phil Weldon


"Dan" wrote in message
oups.com...
I've been having nothing but problems with my pc this past couple of
weeks...

I just attempted to install the new Nvidia drivers (latest download
from nvidia.com)..

So - I uninstalled the current driver, went back to the standard
adapter, and rebooted. Then installed the new drivers.

It wouldn't let me select any mode other than 8*600 and 1024*768.
Adaptor information under control panel was just saying unknown chip
etc..

The games and demos I tried wouldn't run at all, DXDIAG reported "no
version of direct x found", yet the file list displayed several files,
so I uninstalled the newly installed driver so I could go back to the
previous version..

Only then - windows xp boots to a black screen - the loading screen
appears fine, but then it plays the startup tone and a black screen...
I can tell it's doing other stuff, but it just won't display anything!

I tried going into safe mode, but it wouldn't let me - it just displays
a list of files and gets stuck at one for about a minute and reboots,
also "enasble vga mode" boots to a black screen..

any ideas what I can do?

Phil Weldon wrote:
'Dan' wrote, in part:
I've been having nothing but problems with my pc this past couple of
weeks...
_____

More and exact information is necessary.

Hi - Sorry to be a bit vague there, I'm just getting fed up with every
little change causing problems over the past couple of weeks...


A good start would be to include all information in the body of the message,
and not leave any orphan details in the subject line alone.
And what Operating System do you use? XP Professional or XP Home?

It's the upgrade version of XP home..


And what computer do you have? Model number? Home built? Hardware?

It's an advent t9002 (athlon64 3400, 512 megs, 200gig hd), and the 80g
hd from my previous pc..

The story of the last couple of weeks is fairly long, but..

I am multibooting my pc using acronis OS selector. Last saturday I had
an XP home partition,. ann an XP pro partition (hacked version of xp
pro), I decided to install win me on one of the partitions - this was
working ok, but I couldn't read files which I'd copied nto the
partition from my xp boot, and xp pro wouldn't work. My attempts to
"fix" this, went pear shaped, so I used the XP recovery disk to
repqaair xp home - it installed it over win me, and got into all sorts
of muddles with partitions, and wouldn't recognise my USB modem.

I tried to reiinstall winme on another partition - and this was when it
got real fun! despite the fact I used the acronis os install wizard,
and did exactly the same as before - it reformatted my whole hard disk,
rendering the recovery cd useless, so that's when I got the upgrade
version of xp home.

SPent the next week getting back to a multibooting system with winme,
98se and xp home.

Things had been runningt nicely since nonday.


And exactly what display adapter do you have?

it's a PNY geforce 6600


Did you try installing Direct X? IF DXDIAG reports 'no version of direct x
found', don't you think that you should reinstall Direct X? Just because
some files are listed (what files?) dosen't mean direct x is properly
installed.

I'm not sure what happened here - DXDIAG was checking out ok, no
missing files, no registry problems, all display tests fine, and it was
running those awkward games and demos without too much fuss!

It was only after installing the new Nvidia driver that I had the
dxdiag problems


Some thoughts that may help:
Direct X is not part of the display adapter driver.
Safe mode does not require a driver.

I'm not sure what it is with safe mode, but I always had troubles
loading it under windows ME (would "boot" but the system would hang
before I'd got to do what I wanted, and I've NEVER been able to boot XP
into safe mode!! (this counts for my old pc too) - it just brings up a
list of files, and gets stuck at one!

If your system will not boot into safe mode then you most likely have a
corrupt operating system; is there anything you might have done that could
corrupt the system (like overclocking that results in a PCI bus speed higher
than ~ 37 MHz?)

The only change made, was reinstalling the new drivers, and then trying
tto uninstall them when I had these troubles. No overclocking used (pcs
are unstable enough without introducing more problems.... )


There are diagnostics that can be run using the OS CD, especially if you
made a recovery information disk.

At any rate, you should prepare for a more serious problem than just a
display adapter that won't work; you may be on the way to losing important
data. I suggest that you try swapping in a known good display adapter and
using safe mode to diagnose the problem.

I tried using the pcs built in shared adaptor - but that had the same
problem

I'm afraid your system may be beyond any help short of a complete reformat
and reinstallation of one, legitimate, noninfected operating system. If you
install more than one OS, the accepted practice when installing more than
one Microsoft Operating system is to start with the oldest first.

You've done so much wrong that there is little hope of diagtnosis.
And why, if as you state "No overclocking used (pcs are unstable enough
without introducing more problems.... )" would you use a 'cracked'
version of Windows XP Professional? Evidently you've gotten what you were
aiming at; total operating system melt-down.

"Dan" wrote in message
oups.com...

Phil Weldon wrote:
'Dan' wrote, in part:
I've been having nothing but problems with my pc this past couple of
weeks...
_____

More and exact information is necessary.

Hi - Sorry to be a bit vague there, I'm just getting fed up with every
little change causing problems over the past couple of weeks...


A good start would be to include all information in the body of the
message,
and not leave any orphan details in the subject line alone.
And what Operating System do you use? XP Professional or XP Home?

It's the upgrade version of XP home..


And what computer do you have? Model number? Home built? Hardware?

It's an advent t9002 (athlon64 3400, 512 megs, 200gig hd), and the 80g
hd from my previous pc..

The story of the last couple of weeks is fairly long, but..

I am multibooting my pc using acronis OS selector. Last saturday I had
an XP home partition,. ann an XP pro partition (hacked version of xp
pro), I decided to install win me on one of the partitions - this was
working ok, but I couldn't read files which I'd copied nto the
partition from my xp boot, and xp pro wouldn't work. My attempts to
"fix" this, went pear shaped, so I used the XP recovery disk to
repqaair xp home - it installed it over win me, and got into all sorts
of muddles with partitions, and wouldn't recognise my USB modem.

I tried to reiinstall winme on another partition - and this was when it
got real fun! despite the fact I used the acronis os install wizard,
and did exactly the same as before - it reformatted my whole hard disk,
rendering the recovery cd useless, so that's when I got the upgrade
version of xp home.

SPent the next week getting back to a multibooting system with winme,
98se and xp home.

Things had been runningt nicely since nonday.


And exactly what display adapter do you have?

it's a PNY geforce 6600


Did you try installing Direct X? IF DXDIAG reports 'no version of direct
x
found', don't you think that you should reinstall Direct X? Just because
some files are listed (what files?) dosen't mean direct x is properly
installed.

I'm not sure what happened here - DXDIAG was checking out ok, no
missing files, no registry problems, all display tests fine, and it was
running those awkward games and demos without too much fuss!

It was only after installing the new Nvidia driver that I had the
dxdiag problems


Some thoughts that may help:
Direct X is not part of the display adapter driver.
Safe mode does not require a driver.

I'm not sure what it is with safe mode, but I always had troubles
loading it under windows ME (would "boot" but the system would hang
before I'd got to do what I wanted, and I've NEVER been able to boot XP
into safe mode!! (this counts for my old pc too) - it just brings up a
list of files, and gets stuck at one!

If your system will not boot into safe mode then you most likely have a
corrupt operating system; is there anything you might have done that
could
corrupt the system (like overclocking that results in a PCI bus speed
higher
than ~ 37 MHz?)

The only change made, was reinstalling the new drivers, and then trying
tto uninstall them when I had these troubles. No overclocking used (pcs
are unstable enough without introducing more problems.... )


There are diagnostics that can be run using the OS CD, especially if you
made a recovery information disk.

At any rate, you should prepare for a more serious problem than just a
display adapter that won't work; you may be on the way to losing
important
data. I suggest that you try swapping in a known good display adapter
and
using safe mode to diagnose the problem.

I tried using the pcs built in shared adaptor - but that had the same
problem

I tried to do a repair from the xp boot disk.

It will let me load the recovery console, but that doesn';t appear to
offer any fixes for driver issues. although I did a sevices list and
found the following:

Gagp30kx
vgasave - both were set to "boot" status

I tried to do a repair, but the xp installer wouldn't recognise any of
my OS's - I have win98se on one partition, winme on another, and xp
home on the other - it still made me insert a full product cd.. the
partition chooser menu then came up, and it showed that ALL my os's
where under the file system "Inactive os/2 boot man", the free
partitions where listed as fat32 - it wouldn't let me install xp
anywhere...

I had this problem before for uninstalling the display drivers, the quickest
way is reformat and reinstall your whole pc. You can't save it, the XP is
dead. Next time, just overwrite the drivers, it won't corrupt your display
drivers but uninstalling will. The XP will keep the old drivers, if the new
one isn't satisfy, restore back the old drivers.


"Dan"
groups.com...
I tried to do a repair from the xp boot disk.

It will let me load the recovery console, but that doesn';t appear to
offer any fixes for driver issues. although I did a sevices list and
found the following:

Gagp30kx
vgasave - both were set to "boot" status

I tried to do a repair, but the xp installer wouldn't recognise any of
my OS's - I have win98se on one partition, winme on another, and xp
home on the other - it still made me insert a full product cd.. the
partition chooser menu then came up, and it showed that ALL my os's
where under the file system "Inactive os/2 boot man", the free
partitions where listed as fat32 - it wouldn't let me install xp
anywhere...