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Old 03-06-2005, 04:11 AM   #1
kev
Drizzt Do'Urden
 

Join Date: April 4, 2002
Location: North Western Australia
Age: 59
Posts: 670
Bungleau,
I have just tried to install a new video card in my pc and I made a bad mistake.

I bought a geforce fx 5500 256meg to replace the geforce4 mx 32meg onboard in my pc. The new card wouldn't work properly so I remembered what you told someone else last year about disabling the onboard card. I went to the display adapters advanced properties and stupidly disabled the display adapter.

The problem I get is that the pc loads fine but after the windows load screen all I get is a grey screen. I can here the desktop load in the background, but cant see it. There is nothing wrong with the os it is just doing what I asked it to.
Is there any way to fix this. I was thinking of loading xp onto the second hd that I use for backups then try to find what I need to change on my usual hd to get it right. Am I on the right track. I have tried to load in other modes, ie safe mode but it just gets to the last screen before the desktop & stops changing the video on the screen. I have also tried with the new video card in and out. If it is in the onboard video port is disabled, It must be picked up automatically.

specs mainboard soltec sl-75-mrn-l
cpu amd athlon 2600
ram 512
os xp pro no service packs installed
hdd wd 40gb and seagate 40gb
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Old 03-06-2005, 10:46 AM   #2
jsalsb
Elminster
 

Join Date: March 5, 2001
Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Age: 57
Posts: 428
Try this, Kev...

on rebooting go to the BIOS (depends on your system... the opening screen will tell you what to hit, usually F12 or the like - watch carefully!)

In the BIOS browse to the display options and enable VGA. then save and exit the BIOS

If this doesn't work, then the next thing to try is to physically remove the new video card (when the computer is off) then reboot, go back to the BIOS - and under Advanced/Chipset enable 'onboard video' then save, exit and continue on to windows.

NOW... once you've got things working again... when trying to install your new card: Create a new device profile first by copying the current profile and renaming it. Now, only in the new profile, install your new card and disable the old one. This way if anything happens, you can boot up in the old profile. (After doing this, when you boot, the system will always ask you which profile you want to boot in. Once you are sure that the new one is working just fine, you can delete the old one so that it stops asking you to make a choice.)

Hope this helps!!

edit - oops forgot... there's also the boot option to start up in the "Last Known Good Configuration." That should put you back to before you made the changes.

[ 03-06-2005, 02:04 PM: Message edited by: jsalsb ]
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Old 03-06-2005, 11:04 AM   #3
Wyvern
Ironworks Moderator
 

Join Date: January 7, 2001
Location: Rural Paradise, MI
Posts: 5,701
Hope you get the problem solved soon, Kev!!
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Old 03-06-2005, 11:26 PM   #4
Bungleau
40th Level Warrior
 

Join Date: October 29, 2001
Location: Western Wilds of Michigan
Posts: 11,752
Okay, let me back up and think a minute...

Within Windows, you disabled the onboard video, right? Where did you do that, Kev? I went looking in my system (FX 5200, 256MB), and I couldn't find a spot. I also wasn't looking too hard, either... [img]smile.gif[/img]

In any case, if it's in Windows, you're not really in bad shape, I don't think. Here are the steps I'd try:

1. Boot in safe mode (which you've already done; apparently, that's hosed so skip to step 2)

2. From the XP boot menu (where you were able to choose safe mode) boot to the last good configuration. Depending on how far back "last" goes, you may be able to get to a good setup.

3. If that doesn't work, try going into the CMOS settings at the beginning of the boot cycle. It's usually a delete key for me, but it varies from BIOS to BIOS. In there, you should have an option to restore factory defaults. Take that, save, and restart. IF you've monkeyed around in the BIOS at all (which I tend to do), you might want to take note of what settings you had or tweaked...

4. If that still doesn't work, pop in your XP install disk and reinstall it. You will be given the option to overwrite the current version; say yes to that.

5. If that *still* doesn't work, boot from a rescue disk, start at the command line with CD-ROM support, and install XP again from there.

6. If that *still* doesn't work, I'd buy another hard drive, stick it in the box as the master boot drive, pop in the XP CD, and boot from there. That will start you with a clean boot and fresh install, and you can use the other two hard drives as your D: and E: drives.

7. If that *STILL* doesn't work, take it into the back yard and shoot it... [img]graemlins/kidding.gif[/img] Actually, give a shout back and we'll work on some other ideas.

For reference, I *think* what I was talking about with disabling the on-board video was in the BIOS settings, and not in Windows itself. But it's been a while...

If you're in a habit of setting restore points (which I now am), you might have a restore point prior to the installation of the vid card and everything else you did. Restoring to that point would *probably* offset whatever you did, and let you try again. If you're not in that habit, like I wasn't before building my last XP machine, this may help you to get there (like it did me [img]smile.gif[/img] ).

Let me know what happens... I'm back to work tomorrow, so I should be more available than I was today.
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Old 03-07-2005, 03:18 AM   #5
kev
Drizzt Do'Urden
 

Join Date: April 4, 2002
Location: North Western Australia
Age: 59
Posts: 670
Thanks Bungleau,

Luckily I stopped at 6 & didn't get to 7.

I've installed xp on my d drive and used it to boot up. From there I could look at the c drive. I tried doing repairs to xp on the c drive but it kept trying to do it to the d drive, so I got into xp on the c drive & ripped strips out of it. This allowed me to do a fresh install on the c drive.
I had hoped that this would allow all my games & other folders to stay where they were, but at the end they were all over the place. Some of them work & some dont.
I have a lot of work before me to reinstall programs and find save files. The updates for xp pro alone will take about 20 hours to download.
On the plus side my pc is now usable again & the new video card works like magic. I am playing a game at the moment called "Battle for Middle Earth", it was very choppy before, but now works like a dream.
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Old 03-07-2005, 10:02 AM   #6
Bungleau
40th Level Warrior
 

Join Date: October 29, 2001
Location: Western Wilds of Michigan
Posts: 11,752
Glad you were able to get things going again, Kev. Sorry there's so much more work to be done, though... those restore points have been a real time-saver for me. I now do them before every major software addition. Or try to, at least; sometimes I forget about the pain I could be avoiding...

Good luck! Now get out there and kill something
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Old 03-11-2005, 11:30 PM   #7
kev
Drizzt Do'Urden
 

Join Date: April 4, 2002
Location: North Western Australia
Age: 59
Posts: 670
It is good to be able to get some quality advice on this forum.
I did create a restore point before I fitted the new card but it is hard to navigate to that point if you cant see the screen.
It would be good to be able to do a save to the d drive that would save all the changes since the last save. ie a complete copy of the c drive. I think that it would be too cumbersome to do a complete save of 25Gb of information every time I wanted a backup.
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Old 03-11-2005, 11:55 PM   #8
Bungleau
40th Level Warrior
 

Join Date: October 29, 2001
Location: Western Wilds of Michigan
Posts: 11,752
Agreed, Kev. Ain't IW wunnerful?

You should be able to navigate back to it if you boot in safe mode... [img]smile.gif[/img]

And that kind of save is an incremental backup, which can be done quite easily. The drawback is that the incremental backup is much less effective without a full backup to restore first.

Personally, I try to do a full backup of just the files once (and once every major event, like an upgrade), and then save my data files separately on a regular basis. Then I just have to restore the total files, and then overlay my last data. The trick is making sure to save all the relevant game files...
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