Black Screen after the Dell Logo

Hello, I have a Dell Latitude D600 Laptop. I have a booting problem. I turn on the laptop and I see the Dell Logo, I can go in Bios, but as soon as I am done doing what ever I need to do in Bios nothing shows. I can't even go in Safe Mode. I mean I can press F8 and select Safe Mode, but it wont take me there. It only shows a black screen. I even did a memory switch as well as memory test. I thought I need to format it. But when I pop a Windows XP in the DVD-Driver and I select F12 and get the Boot Menu then I pick to boot from the CD and when it asks me to press any button and I do, all it says is "Setup is inspecting your computer's hardware configuration..." after that nothing shows, just a black screen. Could it be my HDD? I even check Bios and it says its detecting a HDD.

Can anyone please help me with this? Anything that may help? Thank you!

 

Can you boot to a Dell Diagnostics CD and run some hardware tests?

Another odd thought, disconnect HDD and see if XP CD comes back with useful info besides just stopping.

GK

 

Good idea about the HDD, I will try that. But unfortunately I have lost the Diagnostic CD, is there anyway I can find it online? I know there has to be a copy online. I don't want to pay 18$ dollars for a CD, any ideas?

 

Check Dell downloads for your unit... maybe there is a diagnostics utility you can put onto bootable media.

GK

 

I got it, thank you very much for your help, something was wrong with the HDD, good thing I had another HDD laying around. Thanks again for your help

 

Well done!

GK

 

For future reference...in the BIOS it should say what size the Hard Drive is. If it does not say anything, there could be a problem with the drive.

Secondly, if you have the machine off and you hold the "fn" key then hit the power button, this will boot the machine in diagnostic mode. Here you can test the memory, hard drive, etc..