Black screen

[markabowman]

i run xp home on an acer aspire 3662. Recently i have been using a vga cable to watch videos and pictures on my TV. It wasn't working so i restarted my laptop with the vga cable still in. As a result i get the bios start up screen that says acer but this is followed by a black screen.

When i restart its the same every time, i get the bios screen without the xp loading screen following it. I am still able to hear the laptop booting up but there is nothing on the display. I can still access <f2> setup, <f8> windows advanced options menu and <f12> multiboot.

I have tinkered about but safe mode does not load past the agpCPQ.sys driver, and i wouldn't know what to do in recovery console. I have tried plugging a monitor in to see if my laptop would boot on a secondary screen but the same thing happens, a black screen follows the bios start up screen.

Anybody have any ideas? I am lost without my laptop...

 

[gavinseabrook]

Use the FN(Function Key) and the external monitor key (should be a button with a blueish monitor). See if that restores your display.

 

[markabowman]

Solution

Hey got it sorted. Used a windows xp setup disc to go into recovery console. From the recovery console i was able to open a prompt and do a scan disk. The scan disk automatically repaired disk errors and my laptop started up properly.

Hope this helps others out there with black laptop screen problems

 

[kimsland]

Thanks for the update markabowman :grinthumb

You're actually talking about Check Disk (as "scan disk" was actually the old 95\98 and ME days scanning tool )
Or specifically this command from the Xp recovery console: chkdsk c: /r

Yes that's helped many users, with many different faults. There must have been corruption (now fixed) with cross linked files with your Video driver on the harddrive, or even a fault with the harddrive itself (worse case here)
You could run a Drive Diagnostics on your hard drive to be certain all is well (possibly confirm all backups are completed as well)