My grandmother has a Dell Dimension 4500S it was working very well but a few weeks ago start acting crazy. When I turn the power on, the machine boot-up ok, but after the windows XP logo appears the display goes blank and then nothing else happens, the lights on the back of the machine are ok (all green) I did try the hard drive in another computer and it works ok, I try another power supply same thing happens, this machine uses a integrated video card so I couldn’t check that, but I think it is nothing wrong with the video since goes thru the cycle, also I enter set-up and I can read everything in the display, what else could be wrong?. The other day when I test the hard drive after I put it back, the machine boot-up ok but after I turn it off and on again same thing happens. I try to move the wires to see if anything is loose but not results I never encounter a problem like this. Can somebody help???
dose it have any pci add in cards, like modem or network ,if so remove them,also unplug cdrom drives and try booting
I did all that, but nothing happens, I am not very sure but I think it could be the hard-disk because I tray and old small hard-disk and it boot up ok with an old version of windows 98. The original disk works in another computer, that is what confuses me, is there something that I can do to be shure that the disk is not good
Use manufacturer's diagnostics to test drive.
All of the major hard disk manufacturers diagnostics are on the UBCD. It is a handy tool to have. Or you can download from the manufacturer's web site.
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html
If HDD tests OK, post back and we'll try some XP repairs using Recovery Console (XP CD required).
I did all that, but nothing happens, I am not very sure but I think it could be the hard-disk because I tray and old small hard-disk and it boot up ok with an old version of windows 98. The original disk works in another computer, that is what confuses me, is there something that I can do to be shure that the disk is not good
you could try to hook it as slave with the old drive to see if you can at least see it and its content ,you will need to change the jumpers on it to slave and make sure the jumpers on the old drive are set to master with slave ,that would be a start then we could try to figure out why its not booting
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