i have managed to delete my video drivers...

[angelratgirl]

and my house ate my xp installation cd.

i have a dell 8200 dimension desktop running on windows xp
i have a veiwsonic va800 flatpanel 17" monitor.

both work, unless i want to see what is on my computer.

i was using ad/remov hardware to remove something i had just installed. anyway, i sneeze (and when i sneeze it is never one sneeeze) and my hands hit the keyboard and before i know it my computer is restarting.

i see the dell startup screen, then the windows xp home screen.
... and then the monitor goes blank. and i know it was nvidia something that i uninstalled because that is the last thing i saw before the computer restarted itself.

does anyone know how i can restore the drivers because i don't have my xp setup disccs. (the only other computer i have access to is run by ME)

is the video card plug and play, can i just remove the card and pop it back in...?

[meese]

When you boot, tap the F8 key. You will get a boot option menu. There are like 5 options. I think one of then is boot using standard VGA mode or something like that. Choose that option. The video resolution will be lousy, but at least you can see the video. Then you can dowload the drivers for your flatpanel from viewsonic, or your drivers for your video card.

[angelratgirl]

i tryied that... just now... no luck. what a loushy day i'm gonna have. i just know it.

[meese]

So at this point you have no video? Is that correct?

[angelratgirl]

just a black screen. no vidoe...

i would have done a system restore... but i cant see what i am doing...

[meese]

Are you sure the video cable is connected securely to the PC?

Do you have an old vga monitor laying around by chance, that you could connect temporarily?

[angelratgirl]

video cable is securely secured.
no extra monitors. although i could unplug the entire thing and bring to this computer.... but if the display drivers are gone, would that really matter? arent' their any drivers that are self extracting that i could put on a floppy?

[meese]

From my experience, I've always been able to boot using the basic windows vga mode. I shouldn't matter what type of video card or monitor. One reason for the basic vga mode is to be able to get video whan things go wrong. I'm not quite sure why you can't get any video when you boot in the basic vga mode. Since its not working, I would try connecting your other monitor to see if you can get video. Its hard to believe what a sneeze can cause

[NeoStarO1]

Have you tried using the F8 and selecting the option boot to last known good configuartion?

[originel]

hmmm...i would recommend getting the monitor from the computer you're on right now and plug it in to the machine having problems. that way you can download the nvidia drivers (the single driver works for all nvidia cards, just select tnt/geforce). it's possible that your monitor doesn't like the "basic" video resolution (i remember hearing that flat panels have difficulty displaying resoultions that are not native, maybe that has something to do with it). anyways good luck