Black Screen after boot option!?

[timelf123]

Hello! Be prepared for a bit of thinking!

Here is the info:

I have a Dell 8400 computer that is about 6 months old. Recently, I tried to install Debian Linux onto a spare IDE hard drive that I had. I did so, and rebooted to run off of my Windows SATA drive after I had installed linux to the IDE drive. I had to leave the house, but when I came back, a black, blank screen greeted me. It had been over two hours and Windows normally boots in less then a minute tops. I resarted, booted off of the correct hard drive, got the NTLDR prompt with the correct boot.ini information and selected the option to boot WIndows XP Normally (my other option is a /safeboot). Black Screen Again! I know that my files are still on the drive, as I can boot into Debian and mount the drive and everything shows up fine and can be accessed. I also can read files fine by booting off of a UBC4Win or BartPe disk. The power supply, videocard, and heatsink fans all are running fine, so the issue is most likely a driver issue or a partition issue.

What I have tried:

1. Booting into safe mode -

Result was that safe mode stopped at system.log and never made it past that file.

2. Booting off of my Windows XP SP2 cd for repair or recovery prompt -

I got a blue screen after selecting option to boot into the recovery console. The stop Error was 0x00000000a and then a bit of hex code after that (which I have handy if that helps)

3. Taking out and switching around my two sticks of 512 ram -

Black Screen still

4. Removing completely my 56k modem (model unknown) and SB Audigy 2 soundcard -

Black Screen still

5. Reseating the videocard -

Black Screen still

6. Updating the Bios -

Black Screen still

7. Booting off of a Windows XP boot floppy with a copy of my boot.ini file retrieved from the SATA drive.

I'm beginning to like the color black!

More Ideas and Info:

I do not think it is a hardware issue as my IDE drive with Linux (Debian to be exact) runs fine and I can use my speakers etc... I also can boot off of a live cd and read or write to the hard drive if necessary. Something I have yet to try is see if I can put some driver updates or driver verification tools on a PE Cd so they can be run in a Windows evironment. If the issue simply cannot be resolved, one good thing is that my drive isn't fried so I could buy another SATA or USB drive and try to clone the drive and see if it boots. If not I can just backup and ghost the orignal with the included Dell ghost partition.

Thank you for reading!

Tim Elfelt

P.S.

Here is some crudely copy-pasted and edited info about the system using my Dell Service Tag (I would have just done an Everest or the like log but I can't boot windows)

Service Tag: 83QGZ51

System Type: Dimension 8400

PROCESSOR, 80547, PENTIUM 4 PRESCOTT DT, Pentium 4 Prescott DT, 3.2GHZ, 1 MEGB, 800FSB

MODULE, DUAL IN-LINE MEMORY MODULE, 1G, 2X512, 533, 1R, 512

MODULE, FLOPPY DRIVE, 1.44M, NEC CORPORATION, DIMENSION, CHASSIS 2001

MODULE, HARD DRIVE, 160GB, Serial ATA, #1, WD-XL80-2

MODULE, CARD (CIRCUIT), GRAPHICS, 6800, GT OEM, 8400

MODULE, MODEM, DONNY, INTERNAL, DATA FAX, DIMENSION, DELL AMERICAS ORGANIZATION

MODULE, CARD (CIRCUIT), AUDIO, SB0358, DIMENSION

MODULE, COMPACT DISK READ WRITE, 48X32, HITACHI LG DATA STORAGE, DIMENSION, CHASSIS 2001, V2

MODULE, DVD+/-RW, 16X, PHILIPS, CHASSIS 2001, SECOND

(If you would rather talk to me my Skype username is timelf123.)

[timelf123]

I just remembered that I had installed new nVidia drivers probably before my last restart, although I can't be sure about when. There was someone who complained about a black screen after installing nvidia drivers, but he was able to get into safe mode, and I am not.

AHH!

Tim Elfelt

P.S. I looked on Microsoft's Support Website and found this article but none of the information helped or I had already tried it.

Edited June 18, 2005 by timelf123