jmanchand

Unfortunately yes, I've done all that too! :confused: :(

Any other ideas welcome! :confused:

Yes I did actually, but found nothing on it of any use!

The Seatools will do the short & long tests with with good results but comes up with an error when trying any sort of low level formatting!? I've tried dban & maxblast with same errors when trying to zero the hdd! Any other tests in any other prog'ms tell me the drive is fine, formats fine & shows up fine in bios fine etc! Also this black screen appears when I don't even have the hard drive in the PC at all?? :confused:

Thnx, but I don't think it's a monitor problem, as I can work off Ubuntu Live CD (Linux!) no probs! Only I'm not Linux litterate, so it doesn't help, as all I can do from there is hdd testing!

I'm 100% sure it's the Seagate 300gb drive in there, as I have the Maxtor here in front of me as we speak! I've also booted up with no hdd whatsoever installed, & I still get the same darn thing!? :( Seatools tells me everything is fine when both short & long tests are done on the Segate hdd!

I've reseated both ram video card & just about every other item in pc to no avail! I took out both my 512mb sticks & repaced with a working 256mb stick! Showed up in bios fine, reseated that even, but still I get that black screen!

I had 2 hdd's installed, a 60gb Maxtor IDE as slave & the primary Seagate 300gb IDE, onboard PCI! I swapped them round to see if it made a difference but finally disconnected the Maxtor & now just have the Seagate installed as primary drive! It shows up in bios fine with no problems in any areas!

Done that a thousand times & visa versa to load Ubuntu live cd, recovery disks, xp cd's & repair & Seatools check cd's! thanks for your fast reply!

:confused: Hi, I have an HP Pavillion 7965 that wont boot after reinstalling windows xp! All I get now is a black screen with blinking underscore in top left hand corner! i've tried hundreds of fixes but to no avail for a week & a half now & it's driving me nuts! I know my way round a pc but this is beyond me! Any suggestions or advice would mean a great deal to me, but be warned I've tried most things already!! :( Hope I've posted this in the proper section!