laptop screen black after going past first screen

[ezkim0x]

my girlfriends laptop stopped working again.

when you turn it on it shows the first screen where you can press f8/esc etc.. and then after that it stays black.

I tried booting from the OS disc and formating the hdd.. then reinstalling winxp on it.. but after formating and copying the needed files for the install it restarts to begin the winxp installation.. and the screen goes black again after the boot screen.

any idea why or how to fix this?

 

[ezkim0x]

bump

 

[ojai00]

Have you tried outputting the display to an external monitor? If that works then it looks like your LCD is about to die. It could be that it has trouble handling higher resolution or higher color bits since it can display the BIOS splash screen but can't display anything after that. Do you see the hard drive LED flashing while the laptop is booting up?

 

[ezkim0x]

I tried plugging in another monitor.. and it doesn't show past the first screen either.

not sure where to look at to see if the hdd led is flashing.

it's a hp pavilion zv5000

 

[ojai00]

The hard disk LED should be next to the power LED. If there is disk activity it should be flashing. After you see the BIOS splash screen, try pressing F8 to see if you get a menu to boot into safe mode.