Black Screen at Repair Installation

Hello there,

I have been having problems with my computer following some completely random corruptions last night. I followed, nearly exactly, the suggested "Repair of XP" solution to this:

http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?t=41789

However, an accident occured as the Windows XP Repair Installer was starting (relatives round for Mothering Sunday knocked out power) and now, whenever I come to restart it I just get a black background and a white cursor I can move around. I have tried /chkboot and chkdsk but neither solved anything.

If possible, can the solution avoid destroying my old installation or C:/ partition? It'd be such a nightmare.

Thank you for your support,

Ben "Kangy "

 

In the Recovery Console, did you try the command "chkdsk /r" (without the quotes, with the space before /r)?

If not, try it. The /r tells it to repair. Once the scan finishes, type Exit, press the Enter key and see if it will then boot on into Windows.

 

Thanks for the idea, but no such luck. Any more ideas before I take a hammer to the thing?

 

When you have nothing to lose...clear CMOS. See if that jolts it into booting. Good luck!

Johanna

 

Why don't you just run the Repair Install process again and hope the power doesn't fail this time?

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

 

I tried running it again, results in the same dark ending.

 

Do you have the boot order so that the install disk is booting before the HD? Are you actually allowed to begin the Repair Install, as outlined in the link? If so, at what point during the Repair Install do you get the black screen? Do you get any other error indications or refusals prior to that?

 

Point 1: Not sure, shall check in a bit
Point 2: No, I get no chance to start the repair, but it's like "black screen, probably loading" and then nothing happens. PC buzzes and whirrs in an effort to decide if it should punish me for taking too many quick fixes in the past, and decides to.
Point 3: There are no errors. Just a dead, black screen.

 

Tried clearing CMOS, changing boot orders etc. to no success. Any other suggestions before I go play around with partitions and reinstall in about 6 hours?

 

If you can't boot to the CD and access the install program, I don't see how you will be able to

Is your HD recognized in the BIOS? You might want to try booting to a boot floppy and seeing if it can allow you access to the CD-ROM drive for running some repair routines (Repair Console) or else doing a Repair Install. The mere attempt might tell you something about the system that would be of value.

XP Boot Floppy (download and run the file and it will create the XP Boot floppy)

The point is, if you can't get to the install CD with any of these methods, you probably have some serious hardware problem.

 

I can boot to the CD if I want. It's the Windows Installer Repair I cannot access.

 

Did I understand correctly that you were able to run chkdsk /r on your C: drive? (suggestion in post #2 and your response in post #3)

 

Yes, I ran a /r to no success. Still trying whatever I can, but it's looking grim :<

 

Hmmmm. If chkdks ran against the system drive then it sees a valid OS load on there. That should be a good sign.

Can you start up in safe mode? If your issue is video related, safe mode should bypass most of the 'features' and give you a simple display. We should be able to do some diagnostics from there.

Before you try anything further and if you are comfortable under the hood, shut down and turn off the system, remove the cover, remove and reseat the video card and cables. Then try the safe mode start.