Ask Me Help Desk - Black Screen Of Death

Black Screen Of Death

Yesterday, I booted up my desktop computer and it refused to completely load. That is, the black screen with the Compaq splash screen would come up, and that's where the comp would stop. If I press any button, the splash screen goes away and a black screen comes up with <F10=Setup> in the bottom right corner. Pressing F10 just changes that text to Setup. Nothing else happens. Sometimes if I leave the computer completely alone, a new screen comes up with options such as security, changing the boot order, etc.

It doesn't give me any options as to how to boot up, such as in safe mode. Following the advice of a help topic on Compaq.com, I disconnected all devices (my game controller, and my extra hard drive). Reboot, and my comp loads fine. However, when I reconnected the extra hard drive, the black screen came back. This only started yesterday, and I made no changes to the drive. Anyone know of anything I can do to get it to work again?

Try restoring to a earlier time /start/all programs/pc help and tools /system restore -- Savage

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheSavage

try restoring to a earlier time /start/all programs/pc help and tools /system restore -- Savage

I tried restoring to a restore point a week before, but it didn't do any good.

Is the extra hard drive an external one? If it is, the computer may be trying to boot from it.

Unplug it, but leave the game controller plugged in. Does it boot up OK?

If it works, try changing the boot order (i.e. cdrom, floppy, hard drive 1) and disable boot other devices (if available in the bios setup).

Quote:

Originally Posted by HVAC888

Is the extra hard drive an external one? If it is, the computer may be trying to boot from it.

Unplug it, but leave the game controller plugged in. Does it boot up ok?

If it works, try changing the boot order (i.e. cdrom, floppy, hard drive 1) and disable boot other devices (if available in the bios setup).

It's an internal hard drive.

Unplugged the hard drive, left the controller in. I booted it up and the comp stopped at the Compaq splash screen; I didn't touch anything and after a few seconds the comp rebooted on it's own. It then booted up normally.

I tried looking at the boot order both with and without the hard drive connected, but it didn't show up in the list. Only the cd rom, floppy, and main hard drive showed up.

I've tried submitting a question to Western Digital as well (they're the makers of the hard drive) but so far they haven't answered.

Seems like your controller is not involved, so that source can be eliminated.

Are both hard drives plugged into the same IDE cable? Check that the master/slave settings are configured correctly.

Your main boot drive should be Master, and be located at the top-most connector.

Your second drive should be Slave, and be located on the middle connector.

Don't use CS (Cable Select) setting.

Something else to try, when you have both drives connected, press F10 to get into the BIOS setup. Is the second hard drive recognized?

Also check the IDE cable for damage or kinked, maybe a broken wire? Are you using a 80-pin IDE cable?

Try connecting the second hard drive to the Secondary IDE (where your rom drive should be). Make sure to set master/slave accordingly.

Master/slave is set properly.

F10 - When connected, it doesn't show up in the boot order selection screen.

I tried connecting it to the secondary IDE. The computer stopped at the compaq splash screen. Eventually the blue setup screen came up, so I checked the boot order menu. It only showed the floppy and main hard drives.

I tried moving the extra hard drive so that the cable was in a more "relaxed" position (it was a bit twisted before). After two restarts, the computer brought up a prompt saying the Windows wasn't shut down properly, and gave me the option to start in safe mode (which I did). Once the computer was booted up, I used system restore and restored to a point two weeks before. Now the computer will boot up correctly with the extra hard drive connected, but the extra hard drive is not recognized.

I got an automated response from Western Digital. One of the links it provided said this:

Quote:

Solution 1: Determine if the drive itself has failed
If you do not hear and feel the drive spin up when you connect the power, the drive will need to be replaced.

So I guess the drive is dead. Although I don't understand what could have caused that to happen.

How old is this hard drive? Usually the manufacturing date is shown on the label.

So according to WD, you didn't hear it spin up and you don't feel the drive vibrating?

Quote:

Originally Posted by HVAC888

How old is this hard drive? Usually the manufacturing date is shown on the label.

So according to WD, you didn't hear it spin up and you don't feel the drive vibrating?

The date shown is August 1, 2004.

I didn't hear or feel anything, but then, I don't recall if it's usually noisy when the computer first boots up.

So the drive is probably dead then. If your lucky, depending on the model, you may have a 3 year warranty which hasn't expired yet, you might want to check that.