windows won't display anymore

[bigj3347]

my brother was trying to play a dvd the other day on his comptuer. the palyer said it can't play under the current 1024x768 resolution so my brother changed the resolution, after he restarted his computer, the computer would POST, the windows xp loading scrren would come up but windows itself won't display on the monitor anymore. you hear the startup sound from the speakers but the screen is just black. I tried a different monitor to the same result. Any ideas??

 

[MrCodeDude]

Two things probably happened here. Your brother did not have proper video-card/monitor drivers installed so he was allowed to select a resolution that either the monitor of the graphics card was not able to handle.

See if you can boot into Safe Mode.

 

[tarv]

I have had the same thing happen to me. When i reboot I got to the xp screen then when it goes to the login screen all i see is black and have to reset. I have to do this 5 times and then the login screen pops up and everything normal. I uninstalled the ATI previous drives that had the catalyst software and put the newest ones on and thats when it happened.

 

[mechBgon]

If you can boot into Safe Mode, go through the motions of setting the resolution and refresh rate to 800 x 600 @ 60Hz, confirm it as if it happened, and then restart and see if it comes up that way in a reguar boot-up. After that you can bring the display back to normal settings.

 

[bigj3347]

when i boot in safe mode . .. the windows screen doesn't load. All i see is the flashing underscore as if windows is trying to load. do i need to reformat? I hope not.