Screen goes black BEFORE Xp Load screen

[Vcize]

When I boot my computer up, it goes through the normal first couple windows. Shows PC Health stats, allows me to enter bios, says "Press F3 for Raid utility" (not running a raid config btw), and then the screen goes blank for a second (like the XP loading screen is about to come up), then a REALLY brief white flash and it just sits at the black screen.

I searched and found a lot of people having a similar problem AFTER the XP loading screen completes (and before the welcome/login screen), but I haven't seen any troubleshooting the screen going blank just BEFORE the xp loading screen.

I've tried safe mode, but the same thing happened. When I tried booting from a CD, the usual "boot from CD" screen came up at the beginning, and then the black screen again.

Any ideas?

OS is XP SP2.

 

[robisbell]

okay, in bios, disable any and all raid settings. reboot, and report back what happens.

 

[Vcize]

I'm not seeing anything about Raid in the bios. If it helps, that "press F3 for Raid utility" has always been there (several years) when everything was working fine as well.

 

[robisbell]

make and model of motherboard.

 

[Vcize]

Epox 8rda+ is the motherboard.

 

[robisbell]

okay, I can not get the manual from epox, but you should be able to disable any raid functions in the bios. I'd consider maybe upgrading your mobo, the last bios update was almost 3 years ago.