I have a PII 400 aopen system with 128meg memory 10 gig wd hd. When I boot my system in the morning I get two black bios screens, One windows logo screen, a 3rd black bios screen the fourth screen is a blank black screen when no messages and then my system hangs with no error message. I have to ctrl,alt, del to restart my computer and it restarts with no problems. If I turn off my computer for 2 hours the problem comes back. But If I restart or turn my computer off for
less then 2 hours I have no problems with my system hanging at startup. This problem seems to have started after I replaced a bad hard drive. After tryiny many possible fixes I realized the problem only happened when I turn on my computer after it has been off for 2 hours or more. Most time when I cold start my computer using f8 and do a step by step startup my computer starts okay. I used to get a blue screen when my system hung
but I Installed windows on top of itself and now I get a black screen when it hangs. Could there be a problem with the new 10 gig wd hd? I ran the diag test from western ditital and no problems messages appeared.
I have disabled power management.
I have checked device manager for any problems
I have reloaded video device drivers.
I think the proble is occurring when windows starts but I am not receiving any error messages.
I have removed all programs at startup.
I have Installed Windowme on a second hd in my computer and when I boot to second drive
I still receive the same hang on startup from a cold start.
thank you for any help you may be able to
provide. rdlacy@easy-pages.com or
rdlacy@juno.com

I've had that problem before myself, sounds like you have a loose card, mine usually ends up being my video card :) try reseating your video card and give it a go. best of luck!
-kelly

Usually this is a display adapter thing. It could be something else of course. windows,bios etc are getting so complicated, maybe we need dos back, well maybe not. anyways, if your video dirvers are the latest maybe your video card is tired and crapping out, could happen.

reseated all my cards on the motherboard.
did a cold start and booted to a black screen
,but I had an hourglass which I could move.
that was different then just having a blank
black screen. rebooted computer and it
rebooted ok on the restart. (just like before).
Just before I get the task bar on a
successful boot I get a blue screen, but when
the boot does not work I done get that far.
Any ideas. Also on my bootlog.txt file I
received the following lines
load failed drvspace.sys
load failed ndis2sup.vxd
load failed mrci.vxd file not found

init = (blank)
load start = display.drv
load success =display.drv
init done = display

I do not use disk compression on my hard drive.
how can i remove it from my system ?

thanks for all your help. roger

i'd say its hardware probably. what if you shut if off and restart like 5 minutes later??

If shutdown for less than 1 hour it boots
normally. over 1 hour it hangs unless I start in
safe mode. That's what so puzzling.
If it were hardware would it boot in
safe mode ? And if it is hardware, what hardware
would this problem point to?
thanks roger

ran diag on my system and it said to enable dma on hard drives.
also said smbios/dmi information may be
inaccurate.
any ideas as to how to enable dma or check
smbios/dmi info ?
And may this be causing my problems ?
thanks roger

narrowed down problem using Q273738 from microsoft
data base. When I remove display.drv=pnpdrvr.dvr
from the boot section of the system.ini file
system will boot without hanging. But the display
is 16 colors. It looks like problem is with the
display driver. My video card is a EONTronics 8
meg Van Gogh. Updated display drivers, from
EONTronics, but that did not fix problem.
Downloaded Q127139 from microsoft for video
problems in windows.

Again, this problem only happens after my
computer has been off for 1 hour and when I boot
it comes up to a blank black screen. I ctrl,alt,
del one time and it boots into safe mode with no
problems. I restart computer and it boots into
normal mode with no problems.

I have been able to enable dma on 1 hard drive,
but my c drive will not stay checked in dma.
Thanks Roger

Reduced video display from 256 colors 800 x 600
to 16 colors 640 x 480 and computer booted okay
after being off for 15 minutes. I then change
back to previous display stats and rebooted.
System hung upon reboot. Also I removed sound
card in device manager and did a refresh. sound
card came back along with 2 unknown devices.
The 2 unknown devices do not show up in device
manager. thanks

Have fixed problem by replacing my video
card. Thanks for all the advice.