Dell Dimension 2400 starts up to Window wp logo displays, and then black screen

[patrmich]

Hi,

First of all, I apologize for any mistake in English, as my native language is French.

I have been using a Dimension 2400 for years without any problem

Now, I am facing the following trouble :

When I press the power button, the front green light is not as dark green as usual. The PC starts untill the display of the windows (XP) logo. And then, the screen gets dark. The mouse works, but no action can be done.

I tried various things such as unplugging the computer or starting in safe mode. But nothing worked.

All the four diagnostic LEDs on the rear are green.

I have also made the following tests :

- by pressing the F12 key, I could reach the menu that allowed me to check the hard disk : the result was "Pass"

- I also tried to go to "Boot to utility partition", but this leads to the display of the Windows logo screen, followed by a black screen

- I also tried to start in safe mode, but this leads to the display of the Windows logo screen, followed by a black screen

Finally, I tried to repair windows xp from the cd, but after the repairing process nothing changed :

I still reach the windows logo screen, and then I get a black screen (just with the mouse cursor on it, which can move)



Could someone help me in this matter ?

Thank you in advance,

Patrick

[davy]

I would not have advised doing a Repair with the disc first of all, too late now 'if you did' lose any important files they might be able to be recovered by using a Recovery program.

The first task is to isolate the problem, when people get to panic and end up trying this and that more problems could easily result.

We need to find out if it's a hardware problem or corrupt data problem which could be due to many causes a very easy way to find out is by booting with the hard drive unplugged - on a good system with the hard drive disconnected you should get an error message, 'Hard drive failure', 'No hard drive found'... it could be almost anything similar or simply you may get a load of data with 'Press any key to boot from CD for example, this tells us the bios and mobo appears to be doing their job at this stage.

First of all I'm worried about this

When I press the power button, the front green light is not as dark green as usual.

I'm guessing you mean this light is staying red and we need to confirm it is the power light and not the hard drive light that flickers when the hard drive is running.

Can you try rebooting the machine and immediately start tapping F8 button every second or so until the screen comes up... this should put you in safe mode, and if you can get to this stage try selecting 'Boot from the last good configuration' see what happens... I know you said you tried a Repair install lets try this first and see what happens.

To get out of Safe mode simply reboot the machine normally.

davy