Video problem with my new Windoews ME system

Factual Questions
1

I recently got my new computer, finally, and of course it is not working right straight out of the box. As I expected. Sigh. Anyway, the problem is this:

The first time I booted up the system it worked ok. I set up an internet connection to my old isp, surfed the web a little bit, and viewed a few full motion video files that I had saved on cd-r. Then, when I ejected one of the cds from the drive, I had a “blue screen of death” crash. I did a soft reset, and since then I have had a problem. What happens is, I start the boot up sequence, and everything looks ok. The text screen part of the boot up happens just as it did the first time when everything worked right. I can get into the BIOS setup with no problem (I didn’t make any changes though). But then, at the part when my desktop should appear, I get a blank, dark screen. The last thing I see is the little cursor in the upper left hand corner of the screen. Then, nothing.

I think I am experiencing some kind of video problem, but I have no idea what. The frustrating thing is, the first time I booted it up it worked fine, but ever since, nothing but a blank screen, except when I boot up into safe mode. When that happens, I do see a GUI screen, at an obviously low resolution, I think 480x360. This is no good though. When I boot up in safe mode, the system goes right to scandisk and hangs about 3/4 of the way through it. If I hit escape to stop the scan, I get another blue screen of death error, and have to reboot, and so the cycle begins again.

My new system is an AMD Duron 950 mhz with 256 megs ram, AGP video integrated into the motherboard, running Windows ME on a 40 Gig HD.

My monitor is an svga with a maximum resolution of (I think) 1280x1068.Or something in that vicinity. I know it works because I have since reconnected my old system to it, and am using it right now to type this message.

If anyone here can help me out with this, I would be forever in their debt. Thank you in advance.

2
      • I don’t have anything WinME on it so I can’t say anything specific about that. I can say what I’d try, though:
  1. First of all, if it’s got a warranty, you can try reinstalling the OS, but not really anything else, or they’ll weasel out of the warranty on you. Send it back and let the manufacturer bother with it. If you can, that is: did you buy it complete off the shelf, or did you assemble it yourself?
    Make? Model #?
    ~
  2. If there’s no warranty (for whatever reason) I would remove the HD, and hook it up as a slave HD to the functioning PC, and run scandisk on it from there. If it checks out okay,
  3. The next thing is to reinstall the OS, and make sure the CAB files get transferred to the apropriate directory on the HD. In some cases, if a file is damaged, the OS will try to locate and recover the original file from the CAB files if they are present. -And I don’t know what that directory is for WinME, somebody else will have to tell me.
  4. Next, it sounds like either the video “card” died, or the card’s drivers got Microsofted. I would try disabling the onboard video and installing another video card. (Note: onboard video and sound should generally be avoided, if possible…)
  5. Once the PC starts up correctly, go online and do the Windows Update thing. If the new PC w/new HD fails to start up correctly after all this,
  6. I would also try installing the new HD as the master HD in the old PC, just to see if it will start up that machine. You already know that the monitor works okay. - DougC
3

Ah, the joys of WinME…

I’d say get right on the horn with customer support. Even though the advice on this board is generally top-notch, it doesn’t beat a timely RMA. If your warranty still covers it, you’re gold.

4

Sounds like a busted binary or registry entry. Easiest and quickest fix since it is brand new is just to scrub the disk and re-install the OS. If it keeps hanging reseat all the cards and the memory DIMMS. If it keeps hanging after that get a new one.

5

Did you try to get into Safe mode? Also if you can get in the bios, that’s nice, usually the bios should have a special setting that always works to boot but I can’t see yours. I like the idea of reinstalling the operating system or taking it back to the store.

6

Yes Handy, I can get into safe mode as I said in the OP. I did email the customer support, they said this:

Anybody have any advice on A) Reinstalling the OS and B) Making sure this doesn’t happen again?

7

Advice? Yeah, don’t take out the cdrom when its reading it but I don’t know why that did it I have done that before. You should just reinstall the OS I guess. Try it from safe mode if you can read the cdrom reader.

8

Assuming you don’t have a recover CD (if you do use it instead) and assuming you have access to another system with 98se or ME make a startup disk on the other system with the add/remove programs applet. There is a section there for making a boot disk.

Boot your unit with the boot disk and type

“format c: /s”

This will format the drive and the /s switch will put the boot files on it after formatting.

Reboot the system with the boot disk and put in the Windows ME install CD. Go to CD drive letter (D: or E: typically) and type “setup” . The install will guide you through the rest. If the CD version of ME you are using is an upgrade version it will ask you for a windows 98 CD to confirm that you own(ed) Win 98. You will also need your ME microsoft serial key # (usually on the back of the disk cover)

It should take about an hour. If there are components in your system like unusual sound or video or network cards that ME does not come with drivers for, you will have to
download these from the net after the main install.

9

astro,he said that he can get it running in safe mode.

10

I saw that handy. Most of the time (not all) safe mode does not allow access to the CD and re-installing windows over an existing corrupted install does not always replace busted binaries or corrupted registry entries effectively. Since the system is brand new a scrub and re-install would be the surest and least problematic solution IMO.

11

Windows ME has a system restore. Assuming you can use it in safe mode, (and I’m pretty sure you can) it may be able to restore your computer to where it was before your mistake.

It is under start–>programs–>accessories–>system tools. It should be at the bottom of the system tools menu. It should give you a calendar and the option of restoring your system to a certain date.

I don’t know if it would work with this type of problem, but its worth a shot.

12

Well, I tried re-installing the OS. If you’re interested, the saga continues in this thread Errors trying to install Windows ME, can someone tell me what they mean?

Astro: I didn’t format before I re-installed, I think now perhaps I should have. Can I “format c: /s” from a Windows ME cd-rom bootup?

13

I don’t know. The bootable floppy method will place the format program on the floppy so it can be executed from the A: drive. Certain memory drivers also have to be loaded before the system can install windows. A floppy boot per the previous instructions will set the system up correctly for this. I don’t know the drivers a CD based boot loads into memory.