I have Windows ME on my old PC, and have just bought a new PC. I unplugged the monitor from the old PC and it works OK with the new PC. When I had got the new PC up and running, I plugged the monitor back into the old PC and switched it on. Now it comes up with the message "Windows has successfully initialized this display adapter" and then displays a blank screen with the cursor flashing in the top left corner. I can't even get it into safe mode. I've tried unplugging the monitor and leaving it for a few minutes before plugging it back in, but this has no effect. The video card isn't the original IBM one, it's a Hercules. Please help... Martin

Like most problems of course you want to try to easiest things frist ? Perhaps the unplugging and plugging back in of your monitor you some how dislodged the card from being firmly seated in its eithr AGP slot or PCI .All this would intail is opening up thre tower and make sure its properly seated in slot gently push down on video card from top at both ends with even pressure ! While you have tower open clean out dust from power supply /fans etc. check all connections ! Also your coin battery on the M.B. that hold the CMOS info may have finally gone dead causing your BIOS to lose the info on your hardware .Quickly replace CMOS battery if the first actions dont give you any joy ,by quickly I mean by taking the old one out and putting the new one in again gently and evenly ,you wont lose the info ,if the CMOS wasnt the prob ,if it was it would matter ,after new battery in open in BIOS setting by ,holding delete button as it boots up ,set to defaults ! Other considerations ,bad power supply ,if no a hardware problem ,you can try one of these Ianm about to list to get WinMe up ,since it appears you may be in DOS when it starts ? Except you should have a C:\ prompt , instead of just cursor ? First off do you have a WinMe recovery disk ,or did you create a emergency floopy startup disk , hope so ? TRY>Start your computer, press and hold CTRL, and then choose Safe Mode Command Prompt Only from the Windows 98 Startup menu. If you are running Windows Me, start your computer with the startup disk. At the MS-DOS prompt, type cd\windows\command, and then press ENTER. Where windows is the name of the folder in which Windows is installed. At the C: prompt, type scanreg /restore, and then press ENTER. Select the previous registry you want to restore, and then press ENTER.NOTE: A properly working registry has the word "Started" next to the date. When you receive notification that you restored a properly working registry, press ENTER to restart your computer. TRY>You can allso do a system restore from dos with boot disk allso http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;[LN];Q279736 How to Start the System Restore Tool From a Command Prompt The information in this article applies to: Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition Summary Windows Millennium Edition (Me) includes the System Restore tool, however, you cannot start the System Restore tool from a command prompt. Because of this, it may be useful to start the System Restore tool when you are unable to start your Windows Me-based computer normally or in Safe mode. This article describes how to start the System Restore tool when you are unable to start your Windows Me-based computer normally or in Safe mode. More Information To start the System Restore tool when you are unable to start your Windows Me-based computer normally or in Safe mode, you can temporarily change the Windows shell from Explorer.exe to Progman.exe: Start your computer by using the Windows Me Startup disk. At the Startup menu, choose Minimum Boot. At the command prompt, type edit c:\windows\system.ini, and then press ENTER. Edit the shell= line so that it looks like this: shell=progman.exe Press ALT+F, and then press S to save the changes to the System.ini file. Press ALT+F, and then press X. Remove your Windows Me Startup disk, and then restart your computer. When your computer restarts, Program Manager should start. If Program Manager does not start, repeat steps 1-7, being careful to follow these steps exactly, and then continue to the next step. On the File menu, click Run, type msconfig in the Command Line box, and then press ENTER. Click Launch System Restore to begin restoring your computer to a previous, functional state. NOTE: After you configure your computer to start Program Manager, you can start the System Restore tool by typing c:\windows\system\restore\rstrui.exe at a command prompt, and then pressing ENTER. For additional information about the System Restore tool, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: Q267951 Description of the System Restore Utility in Windows Me First Published: Nov 15 2000 12:18PM Keywords: kbtool kbWinME kbProd2Web kbhowto dos mode Of course B/4 the ending your testing the hardware ,if you run yor PC thru a surge protector ,plug it directly into wall ,incase the surge protector went bad ? I hope some thing I suggested will help you ,I have'nt even touchd on a driver problem with your video card ? Take Care Nick

That was brilliant, thanks Nick!!! Such a detailed reply, and so speedy. Thank-you very much. I took out the video card and cleaned the contacts, as you suggested, and Hey Presto! - it works!!! Once again, thanks very much, Martin.

Nick, Thanks Nick, that was really good, fixed my problem too, as it would not open up "Help and Support" on Win98 ME. Found I could use it in safemode and so started to delete the different system files but boy that is a job. So looked at the problem and there you were with the answer. Great many thanks.