Hi, not been here for a long while....
I have a confusing issue with an old but valuable (to me) computer.
My trusty old Athlon XP2000 computer - running Windows 2000 - developed a problem after its power supply died. Having replaced the power supply, the PC starts up but won't boot with a high res display. The screen is blank.
It would seem that it's not loading its video driver. I can get a (low res) display in Safe Mode, but in normal mode the computer boots with no display at all once it gets beyond the initial stages of bootup. I can't find the original nVidia driver CD, and it's hard to identify the correct driver on the web, but that's academic anyway since the computer also isn't recognising its CD drive or any USB drives or memory sticks, so I can't load or update any drivers anyway. I reckon the video driver's probably OK, but something else is stopping it loading.
The computer appears to boot more or less normally from its internal hard disk (though without a display) and in Safe Mode, once I can see what is happening, it's clear that the PC can't list the directory structure of its internal hard disk. And yet if I start up an application programme, the programme is able to find its saved work files.
Anyone got any ideas ? I know this is ancient technology now, but I would like to fix this if I can, the computer has been very reliable until the power supply problem and has accumulated a lot of software over the years that I use all the time - reinstalling it all would take forever and that is assuming I can locate all the installation disks. They must be around here somewhere, since I never dispose of anything I am still using !