[JuanitaMB]

Hey,

I have a Dell Inspirion 1525.
Somehow, I have messed up the video settings I think.
If I hit media direct everything is fine, I can play a dvd no problem.
BUT, I can no longer get into Vista, I only get a black screen. The cursor is there and I can move it but the screen is totally black.

I called Dell and surprise, it's not hardware, it's software and I have to pay $$$ for them to help, and according to the tech, he may have to restore it, which I can do myself for free.

I have searched several forums, I found some people who fixed the issue by removing the battery and powering it up that way for a couple of seconds but that didn't work for me.

I also tried the suggestion of hooking it up to an external monitor but since I can't access anything I had no way of initiating the second monitor.

Any ideas?
Thanks in advance
Juanita

ps, haven't been here in a while, love the new look

[kamebard]

If the cursor is there, it means that you still have video (e.g. not a video problem), but are possibly waiting for something to load in the background.

Possible solution is to keep it on for a while (maybe a few hours) and see if it finishes loading.

[JuanitaMB]

Hey,

Left it on for ages, no luck.

Funny thing, if I boot from the Vista CD, the screen works fine while I'm in that boot screen.
I ran a repair, nothing, black screen when I rebooted.

If it was a driver, wouldn't the screen have issues all of the time?
I can hit the load drivers button and view all my drives, programs etc. But as soon as I exit the boot from cd screen, black...........again.

Very weird.
Juanita

[Gulo Luseus]

The screen you get sounds quite like th eone you can get with an unactivated or out of 30 day period. However as you can play dvds, i would guess this isnt it. Just to confirm, did you mean you can out a dvd in after vista starts up, and it plays ok? If it does, do you get the buttons for play, rew etc at all? Do you have a task bar/ start button at all? Any writing on the screen whatsoever?
Sorry to ask so much, but it may narrow it down to an easier problem

[JuanitaMB]

Hey

no problem, I appreciate all the help I can get.

If I power up the computer as per normal, I get the dell logo and then black screen, nothing else on the screen except the cursor which I can move. ctrl alt del does nothing, nor do any of the function keys. Same thing happens when I use F8 to try to enter safe mode.

If I boot from the vista cd, I get the windows help screen no problem, I have options to restore, reinstall, repair etc. There is no install point for a restore so that's out. I ran a repair, didn't work. In the repair, I have the option to load drivers. In here, I can browse through all of my files with no screen issues. Dell has a driver reset tool that I think would be useful if it supported vista

This dell has a round button with a house on it, if I turn on the machine using this button the machine launches the media direct program, here I can watch dvd's using the media direct default screen but I can only access this program and cannot use escape to enter windows. No buttons for play rewind etc, no task bar, no start menu

I am stumped.
Juanita

[Coolguy123]

Buddy....this is as OS issue.....the computer works fine when you are booting through a DVD or in Dell Media direct because you are working outside the OS enviorment, try using Dell Factory Image restore or Reinstall using OS cds....hope it helps