While removing a firewire card when the computer was turned on, I accidentally nudged my PCI display card out of its socket. The display froze, so I restarted. It froze during the XP Logo screen (with the moving blue bar). Now it only opens up in Safe Mode and I have tried System Restore and reinstalling the display card drivers but it still won't boot normally. I hope this is in the right forum (wasn't sure if it was actually a hardware issue). Any help would be appreciated.

I hope you don't really mean that you removed a card from a PCI socket while the computer was running? - I'm suprised you haven't screwed it completely!! The only thing you can do is use msconfig to do a clean boot (instructions here) & then use a trial & error method to see which part of the boot process is causing problems. "I know that I'm mad - I've always been mad..."

I am pretty sure that you need to buy a new display card. does your computer beep while booting ? because those beeps are due to hardware issues. First thing ... never touch anything inside computer without turning the power off and also removing the static charges in ur body. Secondly, carefully following the above instructions, try to remove the display card and make sure the slot is clean and make sure ur card is clean and place it back inside and make sure it fits correctly. Finally, if the above steps do not work, try to use the display card on another PC and in that way u can make sure whether ur display card has a problem or not. Sajid Mohammed sajidspace@yahoo.com http://www.cs.uml.edu/~smohamme

Okay, I'll try those when I get home tonight. Thanks. The display card seems to be the issue but I don't understand why it works fine in Safe Mode. I don't get any beeps when booting, but I never do - so maybe my computer doesn't have the facility (it was built by a cousin so he might not have bothered). I thought removing PCI cards when the computer is turned on was fine, I've done it before and haven't had a problem. I had a similar problem in the past, though for different reasons, so I tried to reinstall windows but it kept freezing during "installing devices" - which means I'm wary of trying it again.

Nothing is suppose to be disconnected when the computer is on, except things plugged into USB ports.

I just tried clearing the CMOS, and if I then choose to "load default values and continue", it boots up. It can do this every time, as long as I choose the default values option. However, if I go into Setup and choose "Optimal" or "Best Performance" settings - or indeed save the settings it already has, it goes back to freezing during boot. I've tried fiddling with various settings but nothing seems to change it. Does anyone have an idea of what could be wrong? I really want to get to the root of the problem.