Video Troubles After Power Outage W2K

[CyberGenX 0]

Had a power outage on friend's machine. After outage, computer will display 2K splash screen and then before logon the monitor jumps to 120Hz and all is black. You can here it hit desktop as it plays the Windows startup wav. Here's what I've tried

 

 

1: Safe mode, VGA mode, console, Last Known good, etc. All resulted in 120Hz freq. displayed on a black background. The monitor tests fine. Video card tests ok in other system.

 

2. Took out video card and put in 2 MB PCI card. Get the following message "Unable to initialize video driver..." BSOD

 

3. Left AGP card in with PCI, same thing.

 

4. Renamed video drivers in repair console. BSOD.

 

 

I get BSOD all the time now after renaming drivers, obviously.

 

Need to know if there is a work around or fix. Or do I have to reload Windows.

 

 

His stats are

 

800MHz Tbird

FIC PC133 MB

ELSA TNT 2 16MB VANTA

30 GIG ATA 66 drive

Windows 2000 SP2

[Sampson 0]

Boot from the CD. Get into the console and save your data if you can. You could reload Windows, but it would be best to clean install. If you get it running and it is working fine, go immediately and buy and Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS).

[der King Mongo 0]

It sounds like either driver corruption, or system file corruption.

 

Did you try uninstalling the video drivers (from safe mode), and removing (deleting) both the display adapter and the monitor?

 

When you start bcak into windows, they should both redetect and then you can use something generic (say, some generic standard VGA adapter, and the generic plug & play monitor).

 

If that works, reinstall the drivers for both devices.

 

If it doesn't work, try reinstalling Windows--actually, first, try doing a repair. You do that by booting from the cd, then selecting install, then, when the installer detects the existing Windows OS, tell it to automatically repair it.

 

If that doesn't work, then try reinstalling, cleanly.

[CyberGenX 0]

Cannot get into safe mode, get error "video driver failed to initialize..."

[der King Mongo 0]

Well, if your Windows 2000 is installed on FAT32, then use a boot disk and replace your copy of vga.sys, the generic vga driver used in safe mode.

 

If it's on NTFS, then you need an NTFS boot disk...I don't know of any free ones.

 

You're probably best off doing either a parallel installation of 2000 (check MS' knowledgebase), or doing a clean install.

 

Actually, before doing all that, do a fast repair, using the install cd.

 

Good luck!