I end a night of good gaming and start-shutdown the computer. I wake up the next morning and gingerly press the power and proceed to watch my bios screen flash up and out like normal then suddenly a non-normal black screen appears taking the usual place of the windows load up screen. Im shrug this off and wait for a few moments and then a few minutes. I begin to get suspicious and then reboot the computer to find the same black screen staring back at me. I suspect some sata cable becoming undone so I inspect and see that nothing is disconnected or out of the ordinary in my case. I begin to get worried and now I am here sharing my situation after a couple hours of checking and rechecking my hardware trying to find the smallest thing that could be causing this black screen and the non loading of windows.

I have tried to repair windows from the disk and that did nothing. The same screen comes up. I have been on the phone with the motherboard people (disconnecting nd reconnectting everything) and that didn't have any affect. I dont want to try to reinstall windows because all of my parents priceless images and home movies are on the hard drive. I dont feel like having my head on a stake because I messed those up. haha.

My specs if this helps:
Asus A8n Sli Premium
OCZ 2GB Platinum
Ultra X-Connect 500W
EVGA 7800GT
AMD X2 4200+

Any suggestions would help. Thank you

is there a flashing _ in the right hand corner?

it may be you video card...

you can also try troubleshooting the motherboard: http://forums.pcapex.com/motherboard...ide_links.html

There is no flashing. the monitor is getting signal because its lit but its black. The video card works because it shows the bios screen and everything it just that it doesnt show the windows logo it ust goes to a black screen.
the bad part is that I cant test any components because i dont have another mobo with pci-e slots or another mobo with a sata controller or another pci-e graphics card. Im stuck.

Quote: Originally Posted by roryyboyy There is no flashing. the monitor is getting signal because its lit but its black. The video card works because it shows the bios screen and everything it just that it doesnt show the windows logo it ust goes to a black screen. the bad part is that I cant test any components because i dont have another mobo with pci-e slots or another mobo with a sata controller or another pci-e graphics card. Im stuck.

it can still be your video card.. when in bios it uses a lot lower screen resolution...

Do you hear your hard drives loading stuff? I had this problem, and it turned out to be because it wanted my monitor plugged in to the other port. (i've got dual DVI).

If youre HDD is starting up and if you know for a fact its not the vid card Try running scandisk and mem test from a CD, it could be a screwed up sector on the HDD or Ram issues.

Post back please for update

-edit-
What is the make/model of your HDD ?

WD Caviar

Its one of these

how do you run scandisk or memtest from a cd? My HDD is spinning up. I think there is something wrong in the HDD. I had just RMA'd my video card so this card is like 4 days old. It might be that too though. Its just I dont think theres anyway for me to check my video card.

Go HERE, to DL memtest86 and there is instructions on how to make it bootable in the "README" file which is pretty easy.
when you got the boot up cd/floppy finished just go into your bios and set it for first boot device, then run memtest. and let that loop over night. This most of the time will rule out any ram issues that could be causing you problems.

by you replying means you have access to another pc right?

well if this is true, take out your hdd from the "bad" pc and put it in the one your using now as a "Slave" drive. Boot into the good hdd like normal and then go to

"My Computer"> Right click on the bad drive>"Properties">"Tools" tab> under "Errror Checking" click "Check Now". Click both boxes for "Automatically Fix File System Errors" AND "Scan for and Attempt Recovery of Bad Sectors".

Put drive back in "bad" pc, now scandisk will run at boot-up, and if there are any bad sectors this diog most of the time will find it.

I dont have anyother computer that is sata compatible though. Thinks for all your help.

Okay......from the information you provided.

You can boot up get a post screen and single beep and then a black screen with no error message or flashing cursor.

Are you still able to get into the bios.
Does bios see the hard drive? If so check to see if boot order is correct.

Try disconnecting the hard drive and boot up.
Do you get a error message stating invalid drive specification.....Im trying to determine if the hard drive could be causing the lockup and not proceeding any further after post.

Also, When you did a repair did you reinstall the sata drivers during setup?

Give it a shot.......and let us know what happened.

Quote: Originally Posted by roryyboyy I dont have anyother computer that is sata compatible though. Thinks for all your help.

HERE is a sATA controller card for cheap, and im sure you should be able to find something similar in your local pc shop or superstore.

this card can be usefull in the future too, if/when you get a new hdd for the non sATA rig or any other.

I'm most suspicious of the Video Card but it could also be a screwed up Bios, try removing the Cmos battery for a few minutes, then when you've wiped it try starting the machine again.

So after spending a couple nights on the phone with microsoft I had to parrallel install wondows and try to get to my old files. It let me boot up so my video card or hardware isnt broken so it was just some errors. I couldnt get into my old my documents so all my files are gone I think. I am just going to reformatt
and start over. Thanks for all the help.