Well, looks like I've just signed into the 'You tampered with VGASave' dunce club. Yippee.
My parents' computer was having all sorts of problems earlier, so I assisted them with running Windows Repair, which fixed almost all the relevant problems. (Their network still wasn't working, but it turned out that the network card just got dislodged somehow--d'oh!)
Well, mom stirred me this morning with a problem: her windows were moving really sluggishly. Didn't take me long to recognize that the video adapter drivers must not have been installed correctly. So I just jump in and try to fix up the drivers myself. Upon examining the adapter properties, I find something called 'VGASave' instead. Messing around with it (both disabling it in the hardware profile and temporarily(?) stopping the service) didn't seem to lead to anything good. This was after a failed attempt to install the drivers on CD that I located later on...they whined that there wasn't a VGA generic display driver available for the CD drivers to build onto, or something like that. In other words, they want a device to be available to them in Device Manager, and there was none.
(Upon further inquiry, I learned that my boneheaded stepdad was running Windows Repair, encountered a screen requesting drivers from the video adapter disc, and failed to give the prompt the file location it needed. Apparently his cancelling this request screwed up Windows' creation of a display device, so none was available when I tried installing it using the CD install program. Surely, if I'd been told of his failure to get the drivers from the disc, I would've handled it then and there, but it's a little too late now...)
Well, next time I boot the computer up, I get a blank screen (but still hardware usage signal) after the Windows bootup screen. I can hear that devices are being installed or something like that, but at no point does the display come into view. I booted the computer again and heard more things, but still no luck.
This booting twice was probably my biggest mistake, because since the computer booted successfully twice in a row, Last Good Configuration was of no use to me now. Enable VGA mode also failed to make a difference.
So, I ran Windows Repair again. The Recovery Console allowed me to discover that the vgasave service was properly enabled, and all the files seemed to be in their proper places. Doing a repair on Windows, however, gave me blank screens throughout the repair process as well starting after the Windows bootup screen on the first repair step that uses the HD boot (making it essentially useless to me--I can't fly that thing blind!) If I reboot at this point and let Setup restart the repair/upgrade process, then the repair process apparently is running for several minutes before some kind of unseen prompt, but the screen never changes from the light blue 'Setup is restarting.............................' screen.
So, now I'm stuck with a Windows that can't show me anything on a relevant screen. Is my problem lying tucked away in a hardware profile I can't access? Is there another way to fix VGASave? Is there another way to install the driver so that Windows repair utilizes it automatically? CAN I SEE WINDOWS AGAIN?
(I must say that you folks have been brilliantly helpful in this entire experience I've had with you here. I was trying to install a Radeon 9200 VE's display drivers on Windows XP Professional, and I had installed Service Pack 1 prior to running the Repair process with a WinXP disc that lacks SP-1. This hasn't caused me problems in the past (I would just repair and install SP-1 again) but it could be related to the issue. Trying another AGP video card had no impact on the issue. Thanks again for your time.)
My parents' computer was having all sorts of problems earlier, so I assisted them with running Windows Repair, which fixed almost all the relevant problems. (Their network still wasn't working, but it turned out that the network card just got dislodged somehow--d'oh!)
Well, mom stirred me this morning with a problem: her windows were moving really sluggishly. Didn't take me long to recognize that the video adapter drivers must not have been installed correctly. So I just jump in and try to fix up the drivers myself. Upon examining the adapter properties, I find something called 'VGASave' instead. Messing around with it (both disabling it in the hardware profile and temporarily(?) stopping the service) didn't seem to lead to anything good. This was after a failed attempt to install the drivers on CD that I located later on...they whined that there wasn't a VGA generic display driver available for the CD drivers to build onto, or something like that. In other words, they want a device to be available to them in Device Manager, and there was none.
(Upon further inquiry, I learned that my boneheaded stepdad was running Windows Repair, encountered a screen requesting drivers from the video adapter disc, and failed to give the prompt the file location it needed. Apparently his cancelling this request screwed up Windows' creation of a display device, so none was available when I tried installing it using the CD install program. Surely, if I'd been told of his failure to get the drivers from the disc, I would've handled it then and there, but it's a little too late now...)
Well, next time I boot the computer up, I get a blank screen (but still hardware usage signal) after the Windows bootup screen. I can hear that devices are being installed or something like that, but at no point does the display come into view. I booted the computer again and heard more things, but still no luck.
This booting twice was probably my biggest mistake, because since the computer booted successfully twice in a row, Last Good Configuration was of no use to me now. Enable VGA mode also failed to make a difference.
So, I ran Windows Repair again. The Recovery Console allowed me to discover that the vgasave service was properly enabled, and all the files seemed to be in their proper places. Doing a repair on Windows, however, gave me blank screens throughout the repair process as well starting after the Windows bootup screen on the first repair step that uses the HD boot (making it essentially useless to me--I can't fly that thing blind!) If I reboot at this point and let Setup restart the repair/upgrade process, then the repair process apparently is running for several minutes before some kind of unseen prompt, but the screen never changes from the light blue 'Setup is restarting.............................' screen.
So, now I'm stuck with a Windows that can't show me anything on a relevant screen. Is my problem lying tucked away in a hardware profile I can't access? Is there another way to fix VGASave? Is there another way to install the driver so that Windows repair utilizes it automatically? CAN I SEE WINDOWS AGAIN?
(I must say that you folks have been brilliantly helpful in this entire experience I've had with you here. I was trying to install a Radeon 9200 VE's display drivers on Windows XP Professional, and I had installed Service Pack 1 prior to running the Repair process with a WinXP disc that lacks SP-1. This hasn't caused me problems in the past (I would just repair and install SP-1 again) but it could be related to the issue. Trying another AGP video card had no impact on the issue. Thanks again for your time.)
