Blank monitor with cursor flashing...

[bquigley]

I have no idea what my problem might be. One minute my computer is working fine (IBM Pentium 4 with Windows XP Media Centre), and the next time I look at it, the monitor is blank with a flashing cursor in the upper left corner.
I restarted the computer, saw my video card information, then IBM logo giving me the choices of F1 for setup or F12 to select boot device (or something to that effect) and that's it.
No memory listed, no drives listed, none of the normal boot info that flashes on the screen.
When I go into setup, everything looks normal. It is recognizing my memory and my drives. I can put in the Windows CD and boot from CD-Rom. But it seems it's not booting from the hard drive? Should mention that it is SATA hard drive, nearly new, about a year and a half old.
Any and all suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[zipperman]

Name your "video card" information.
Is the monitor readable during boot or reading the bios ?
That would indicate a proper connection.Have you installed the video drivers.
But don't have any disks in your drives.Have you or seller installed the Sata
drivers ? You shouldn't have any boot options,but what choices do you get.?
More after you answer this.

 

[bquigley]

I'll confirm when I get home and look again, but I'm pretty sure video card is nVidia GE Force. And yes, the monitor is fine, and when I'm in the BIOS I can read it perfectly.
I'm not really sure what you mean by the Sata drivers, but I think I did mention that this computer had been working great for more than a year, so I'm assuming those drivers were on the motherboard CD.
And I have no boot options, other than F1 or F12. If I don't select one or the other, it immediately just stops...and there is my blank screen with nothing but the flashing white cursor upper left.

 

[zipperman]

You don't have to guess

Look here.Thats mine.(Video Adapter) This means it working OK.
The Model number is necessary.NVidea makes dozens of cards.
A driver update might be worthwhile if you know it's full name and model.
It's important to know as much as you can about your PC.
Especially when you need help.