Black screen with flashing dash

My Dell Inspiron 2200 Dell with XP Pro and all updates has the dreaded balck screen issue. I've looked at the posts to no avail. I can boot from the CD drive though and I can see all the files using a USB connector kit on the drive when attached to another pc.

What I've tried is rebuilding MBR, AV scan with Kaspersky (nothing found), removed USB devices, built in CD ROM removed, RAM removed, using a utility removed USB root hub listings, I cannot access Safe Mode but can get into the BIOS setup. Tried adjusting the boot sequence, rebuilt boot.ini file using Recovery Disk.

I'm really stumped. I would like to keep using the system and drive and would appreciate any suggestions or questions that might result in a solution.

 

Hello opsman,

Have you tried the following command while in XP Recovery Console? : fixboot

Moving this thread to Software for additional assistance.

 

Thank you for asking, yes I tried it and there was no change.

 

I should be a little more specific, I tried rebuilding the MBR using Recovery Console's fixmbr and then the fixboot also. Retyped the boot.ini file, and also tried using Bing, Avira Boot Sector repair, MBR Work and also Partition Wizard's mbr repair. I've used these on other drives with success so this only adds to my perplexed state. I should also mention that I scanned the drive for bad sectors and corruption but it's fine.

 

Have you tried booting to the XP install CD, and clicking R to do a repair?

See Method 2: Repair your Windows installation at:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314503

 

This is a WD 2500 Scorpio drive, running an extended diagnostic downloaded from their website. If it passes, then I'll run the repair otherwise WD will replace it. Fingers crossed...

 

Well WD's full scan did not find any drive errors. As you can see I tried a long list of fixes, and the suggested repair, and it was time to move on. WD offered to replace the drive if I had any problems. I was able to image the drive to a USB external. This is not the first time this has happened to me, the same issue happened with the original drive and I had to reinstall everything so it may either be an issue that is not fixable due to insufficient information or it may have more to do with an intermittent glitch. So I formatted the drive, wiped it with 0's and started over. So far the drive is working like a champ as it has for the last three years. So thank you all who contributed your ideas and for those who followed this, sorry there weren't any revelations but I hope my first post on this thread would provide useful ideas in case you have the same issue.