[allenritch]

Over the past week I've been trying to update my video drivers so I could play a new game. In the process I somehow royally messed up everything. I first tried using the system restore feature within XP, but even though I could see Windows on my monitor, it still wasn't back to normal. The very last (very stupid) thing that I did was disable my video card and reboot. From that point forward I've been unable to see anything on my monitor except for the brief boot options and subsequent Windows logo (i.e. the monitor is blank after it boots).

I believe the computer is booting fine because once it finishes, I can move my mouse around and hear it hover over the Norton Anti-virus buttons (because I need to renew my subscription, Norton is the first thing that pops up after a boot).

I've tried booting using all the different options: "with previous settings that worked", various Safe Modes, etc. but nothing works. In fact, when I try to boot in a Safe Mode, the computer never finishes booting. It seems to get stuck after filling my monitor with a lot of lines such as "………..\system32\……..sys".

I went into BIOS thinking I could somehow re-enable my video card but there's no option for that there. I also tried physically removing my video card and reinstalling it, but that didn't work either.

I've thought about booting with the Windows XP CD to reinstall Windows, but how can I do that if I can't see the prompts? Any ideas?

P.S.
I apologize if this is the wrong forum for this type of question.

Thanks

[Advertisements]

Booting into 'Safe Mode With Networking' often works where plain Safe Mode doesn't. Anyway, you can still re-install from the xp cd as long as the graphics card or monitor isn't actually broken. Windows xp setup doesn't need your graphics card drivers. You will still see the setup screens. At worst, when setup has finished, you may find Windows is using it's own standard driver with low resoltion and color-depth, but at least it's working till you get the right driver. With any luck if your card is not too exotic, setup may detect and install the correct driver from it's own driver database on the xp cd. Mine was installed that way. Depends how new your card is.

[pip22]

Booting into 'Safe Mode With Networking' often works where plain Safe Mode doesn't. Anyway, you can still re-install from the xp cd as long as the graphics card or monitor isn't actually broken. Windows xp setup doesn't need your graphics card drivers. You will still see the setup screens. At worst, when setup has finished, you may find Windows is using it's own standard driver with low resoltion and color-depth, but at least it's working till you get the right driver. With any luck if your card is not too exotic, setup may detect and install the correct driver from it's own driver database on the xp cd. Mine was installed that way. Depends how new your card is.

[allenritch]

I have a NVIDIA GeForce2 MX 400 video card. The XP CD should have drivers for that card as it's not too terribly old, wouldn't you think?

And are you saying I'll be able to see the prompts eventhough the video card has been disabled? And if so, will reinstalling XP delete all my picture and music files?

I actually went out and bought an external hard drive to back up my personal files, but it's useless seeing how I can't see to do anything.

Thanks