during boot, at the part where it it displays Windows XP in color and the loading bars move across the screen, my monitor flickers and the screen goes blank. this started after i installed a raid array as the new boot drive (but then it crashed) and had to revert to my old boot drive. the drive runs fine when it's not booting. sounds like video drivers right? how can i install them while booting from a different drive?

i also can't access safe mode because of my recent hardware changes, windows genuine advantage kicked back into gear and has locked it up.

Have you successfuly used RAID before? ".... my monitor flickers and the screen goes blank." Blank as in all white, or all black? Does it stay that way? On a CRT or an LCD monitor? If it goes black and stays black, if it is a well used LCD monitor, it's voltage inverter and/or backlight(s) may be failing. In that case, the display will probably go black in about the same amount of time even if you boot with a floppy or a bootable CD. If it goes black and stays black, yet the hard drive led is blinking normally as if it is loading Windows normally, some video drivers will do that just after Windows first loads because they can't determine what settings to use for the monitor - e.g. that can happen with non plug and play CRT monitors. Or you may have the monitor settings set to something the presently connected monitor cannot achieve. In that case try booting into Enable VGA mode. It's on the same boot choices menu as Safe mode when you repeatedly press F8 while booting. It loads the same things as normal mode loads, except it forces the video to use default VGA drivers all mboards and video supports. If that gets you to the desktop, RIGHT click on a blank part of the desktop, choose Properties (goes to Display Properties) - Settings. If it says the proper video drivers on a unknown monitor, click on Advanced Settings, and change the monitor drivers to Plug and Play Monitor, save settings. If you have an LCD monitor, I recommend you DO NOT use Plug and Play Monitor drivers - you can choose Plug and Play Monitor settings that can cause no display, or that can damage the LCD monitor. Load the specific monitor drivers for the monitor model by using Have Disk at the same place, or by using the driver installation program on it's CD. etc. If it says the proper video drivers on a monitor model that is not presently connected, change the monitor drivers to Plug and Play Monitor, or load the proper drivers for the connected monitor. Reboot normally - you should have video in Windows.