My roommate's pc was working fine, then one day last week she turned it on and it booted to the windows xp spash screen, then to a blank black screen with the mouse cursor. That's as far as it would go. I could move the cursor but right or left clicking the mouse did nothing. Windows key did nothing. Ctrl-Alt-Delete did nothing. I let it set for 20 minutes in this state, it went no further. When I booted into safe mode, I got the same result, except the blank screen had Safe Mode in the corners. Booted into Last Known Good Configuration with same result.
I put the HDD in another pc and backed up her files, then put it back in her pc and did an 'in place' install hoping to repair Windows. After copying files, the pc rebooted to the spash screen that you see when installing Windows XP Home, then to the blank screen with a mouse cursor. Now the blank screen was light blue with a bigger mouse cursor because the resolution had changed. That's still as far as it will boot.
Next, I did a clean install by deleting and recreating the partition (entire HDD), formatting, and installing XP from the installation disk. Same result, stops at the blank blue screen.
Although I did not believe the HDD to be bad, I installed another known good HDD and installed XP with the same result. I tried installing XP Pro with my own install disk. It's a full install that I have on 2 pc's of my own. The result was the same as with her disk, except the spash screen said 'Windows XP Professional' before going to the blank light blue screen with cursor.
I'm now thinking the problem is hardware related. Does anyone know what can cause this?
Brand: Gateway Desktop
Model: MFATXPNT NMZ 500SE (can't even find it on Gateway's site)
Mfg Date: 06/24/02
Processor: 1.8 Ghz Pentium (according to bios)
256 Mb RAM
OS: Windows XP Home
I put the HDD in another pc and backed up her files, then put it back in her pc and did an 'in place' install hoping to repair Windows. After copying files, the pc rebooted to the spash screen that you see when installing Windows XP Home, then to the blank screen with a mouse cursor. Now the blank screen was light blue with a bigger mouse cursor because the resolution had changed. That's still as far as it will boot.
Next, I did a clean install by deleting and recreating the partition (entire HDD), formatting, and installing XP from the installation disk. Same result, stops at the blank blue screen.
Although I did not believe the HDD to be bad, I installed another known good HDD and installed XP with the same result. I tried installing XP Pro with my own install disk. It's a full install that I have on 2 pc's of my own. The result was the same as with her disk, except the spash screen said 'Windows XP Professional' before going to the blank light blue screen with cursor.
I'm now thinking the problem is hardware related. Does anyone know what can cause this?
Brand: Gateway Desktop
Model: MFATXPNT NMZ 500SE (can't even find it on Gateway's site)
Mfg Date: 06/24/02
Processor: 1.8 Ghz Pentium (according to bios)
256 Mb RAM
OS: Windows XP Home
