No video until XP boots

I've done some hard drive switching in this PC, and have finally settled things where I want them. The problem is, the last time I connected everything, something's happened.

There is no video at all before windows loads. Before, you'd get the dell splash screen, and the black and white load screen where I'd hit del to enter setup, then windows would load. When I say there's no video, I mean the monitor ready light is still blinking as though the computer is off, although I can hear it running. It takes a little longer.

This box has an intel integrated chip (disabled), and a nvidia geforce mx 440. I'm suspecting something in the boot process, since I get nothing until windows loads. The black screen just before the welcome screen is all I get.

Any advice on how to fix this would be greatly appreciated. I'm about to do a dual win XP/2k boot on this one, but I don't want to do this yet if I can't even see the boot menu.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

What happens when you restart from Windows? Don't shut down but restart.

This issue is common with DVI monitors as the BIOS often does not have the drivers to use it until Windows pulls it up.

Have you tried pressing the Delete key "in the dark"?

Also you might try re-enabling the on-board VGA.

I found the problem.

I switched the monitor over to the onboard card, which let me boot up and access the bios.

Somehow, the default video had gotten set to onboard, so it wasn't loading any video because it was only configured to load the nvidia card in windows. Basically, it was using the onboard card, and since there was no monitor connected to it, the monitor was getting no signal until XP loaded up the drivers.

(Having a hardware guru suddenly have no power and come over to hang out where there's light can be a good thing.)

Thanks for the update. Glad all is well.

Let us know if we can help further in the future.