T30 gets a blank screen when booting into Windows

[tfflivemb2]

I am trying to fix a problem with my T30.

When trying to boot off of the hard drive to WinXP, the screen just turns black, but is still lit by the backlight. I can boot from the CD drive without a problem....everything shows up on the screen. (tested it with my UBCD)

When booting from the hard drive, I never get to see the Windows Splash screen. I can press F8 and choose Safe Mode, but it stops on the line: windows\system32\config\system

The same thing happens when I try safe mode with a command prompt. I also tried Last Known Configuration, and it would still just stop on the black screen.

I tested the hard drive using the UBCD, and it passed with flying colors.

Is this a MBR issue?

My nephew was using the system and said that he had gotten a few blue screens before he ran into this problem, but doesn't remember what they said.

[Harryc]

I think a MBR problem would manifest itself differently on boot, .e.g. you'd get an error about not being able to find the drive or partition/OS. It sounds like you're getting well past that point in the boot process. Have you tried to run the drive fitness test on it? (possible bad sectors) Memtest86? (defective or unseated memory) If that passes, try running a system repair from the XP install CD.

[GomJabbar]

You might try the following which I saw posted recently on this forum.

Langa Letter: XP's No-Reformat, Nondestructive Total-Rebuild Option

[tfflivemb2]

You might try the following which I saw posted recently on this forum.

Langa Letter: XP's No-Reformat, Nondestructive Total-Rebuild Option

OK, that didn't help, since it is an installation from Restore CDs....that option only seems to work on Retail versions of XP....since the Retail Disk that I have is different from the version on the Recovery Disks, it doesn't provide the same option to repair. I have used this in the past on my wife's PC, but again since the disk that I have that matches it is a Recovery CD, the process is completely different....grrr

[tfflivemb2]

Just an update...I pulled the hard drive and connected it to my R40 to transfer all of my nephew's personal files off of the T30, so that I could back them up. When I reconnected the hard drive to the T30, I booted and realized that I didn't have the recovery CD in the drive, so I went to grab it...when I returned.....it had booted into Windows!!!!

I guess removing it and connecting it to a different source helped solve the problem. Prior to it working, I had removed the drive several times and connected it to another T30 and it still wouldn't boot....confirming that the problem was in the hard drive and not the T30 itself. But since I had it connected to my R40 via a USB cable, I was able to "safely remove" the device from my R40 when I was done. This might have been what helped, because just before I had it connected to my R40, I had been using a program off of my UBCD to see the filesystem, and the directories were reading odd, like "D****T***", ***D***T, T*D*****". None of the directories appeared to be intact, which is why I was about to reinstall windows....

Ok, sorry for the long and winded response here....