Solved: No video except in safe mode

[chewie1012]

I have a dell dimension E520 I am working on. I cannot get to the desktop unless I go in safe mode. This computer has an Nvidia Video card and on board video. I have uninstalled the video card and reinstalled it. I downloaded the latest drivers and nothing works. I disabled the secondary video card in the bios and tried to use the onboard video and I get the same results. It will not boot normally. I tried to go to last known good configuration and that did not work. I also tried system restore to a couple of earlier dates and that did not work. Any ideas?

 

[robinredbreast]

I have had similar probelms in the past, Soem of the following you may have tried,

Firstly, disable your on board video
Then check your Nvidia drivers are up to date, remove your Nvidia video card using control panel system hardware options, then reinstall using up to date drivers.

Lastly if that does not work, use your Vista disk and boot up on it and use the 'Repair' option after you have told Vista your Keyboard and Language settings. This is the fix that worked for me.

Good luck

Robin

 

[chewie1012]

HI Robin,
Thank you for your reply. After no less than 3 hours of trying just what you said and everything I said I gave up. This dell came with a restore partition. I ran it and everything is back to normal. It took only ten minutes. As much as I hate those restore partitions at least this one was fast. There actually was a repair my computer screen that had 8 different options. System restore, repair start up and several other things. I tried all of them and the only thing that worked was a reformat and restore. Thank you again.
Jerry

 

[robinredbreast]

Well I'm glad you are now up and running, that's good. I'm not sure if I helped or not though?

I have 4 computers at home, all networked, and only a Toshiba laptop A200 is the one I haven't completely stripped out reformatted and bought a Vista copy to start again. Like you I hate recovery partitions with gusto. In fact I wil not buy a computer unless there is a DVD recovery disk with it. What happens if your HDD crashes?

Regards

Robin

 

[chewie1012]

I know what you mean about the hard drive crash. It is stupid. You would think Dell would learn from HP's mistakes.

 

[robinredbreast]

Yup I agree,

I notice that Dell are now selling their systems thorugh PcWorld, after so much hype about how you can't buy them in shops. Sign of the times perhaps. At least the less clued up users may get some kind of aftersales service.

Anyway good to know your still up and running

Robin