I recently installed Win XP to a second partition on my hard drive and updated it with SP1 from microsoft's web site. Soon began getting error messages (see below)in XP about display driver(s) issues. LogType: Watchdog Created: 2005-03-09 22:45:59 TimeZone: 480 - Pacific Standard Time WindowsVersion: XP EventType: 0xEA - Thread Stuck in Device Driver // // The driver for the display device got stuck in an infinite loop. This // usually indicates a problem with the device itself or with the device // driver programming the hardware incorrectly. Please check with your // display device vendor for any driver updates. // ShutdownCount: 45 Shutdown: 0 EventCount: 2 BreakCount: 2 BugcheckTriggered: 1 DebuggerNotPresent: 1 DriverName: nv4_disp EventFlag: 1 DeviceClass: Display DeviceDescription: NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440 HardwareID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0171&SUBSYS_00000000&REV_A3 Manufacturer: NVIDIA DriverFixedFileInfo: FEEF04BD 00010000 0006000D 000A0B10 0006000D 000A0B10 0000003F 00000008 00040004 00000003 00000004 00000000 00000000 DriverCompanyName: NVIDIA Corporation DriverFileDescription: NVIDIA Compatible Windows 2000 Display driver, Version 28.32 DriverFileVersion: 6.13.10.2832 DriverInternalName: nv_disp.dll DriverLegalCopyright: (c) NVIDIA Corporation. All rights reserved. DriverOriginalFilename: nv_disp.dll DriverProductName: NVIDIA Compatible Windows 2000 Display driver, Version 28.32 DriverProductVersion: 6.13.10.2832 Thinking to resolve the problem with nvidia's update support, I downloaded their newest XP graphics driver and foolishly followed their instructions to delete the old driver before installing the update. Now I see only a blank screen when XP boots. Apparently the XP os completes the full boot but I can't access the GUI for lack of video driver. I've tried to install the new drivers to XP from my Win98 side but it fails. Have used all the F8 options hoping to get Win XP to find and fix the missing driver problem but the system seems unable to complete the boot process in safe mode. Maybe I could get a command prompt and type in DOS intructions telling Win Xp to get and install those new driver files...if I could get a command prompt. How do I get a comand prompt in DOS some other way? Can anyone help me out with this? I don't have boot disks and the installed Win XP os will not accept the same validation code when I try to reinstall XP from my win 98 side, to repair the missing files. Thanks in advance for good advice...

No so sure I have a solution but a idea would be to pull the nvidia card out and throw you in another cheap video card and get the thing going and then go in there and pull the drivers and put the nvidia back in. God made men and then rested, God made women and noones rested since..

Kudos enginedoc! Appreciate your tip, it was a a great help combined with another tip from lurkswithin, my sys is up and XP'ing again. I also enabled the pci pallette snoop in the bios in the process. That may or may not have helped, not sure, since I don't know wtf a pallette snoop is. Ultimately I had to remove the MX440 card and put an old SIS pci card in to get XP to recognize and feed my monitor again. That got me back to the gui and control panel so I could install the nvidia update drivers. Whew! What a hassle, in following nividia's on screen instructions to: 'Uninstall old graphics driver files before installing updates'. It caused quite a problem here. Thank you and all the good helpers at Computing.net. You are very kind to share your knowledge and assistance to us noob and goober types. Shboom