Windows XP Hangs with Black Screen after POST

POST (Power On Self Test) is the first step that BIOS performs when you boot your system. It is a built-in diagnostic program that is done to verify hardware consistencies. At times, you observe that when you start a Windows-based system, it stops responding immediately after POST completes. The reason for this behavior could be damage of critical data structures or system files that result into data inaccessibility. So, to restore lost information, you need to use your recent data backup. However, if data backup appears to be damaged, incomplete or is absent, Data Recovery applications come to rescue.

Consider a practical instance, you start your Windows XP-based computer system and POST completes successfully. After this, instead of Windows XP logo, you see an empty and black screen and system hangs.

Cause

In this scenario, POST has completed successfully. It implies that there are no hardware issues. Possible causes of the above issue to occur are:

- Your system is attempting to boot from an inserted removable media (CD, DVD, floppy disk etc.)
- Corruption of MBR (Master Boot Record), boot sector, partition tables, or NTLDR (NT Loader) file

Solution

To resolve this problem, you need to carry out these methods:

- Make sure that no removable media is inserted while starting the system
- If the problem persists, follow these steps:

1. You require starting your system in safe mode by pressing F8 while starting Windows XP
2. Create Windows XP boot disk and try to start your system using it
3. If you don’t receive any error (which means MBR, boot sector or NTLDR file is corrupt), try to correct boot sector after backing up all the data
4. To fix MBR corruption, you need to use FIXMBR command through Windows XP Recovery Console
5. If problem persists, check the hard disk for partition corruption using Disk Management. Delete the damaged partitions and restore data from backup.
6. If boot disk fails to boot the system, you need to reinstall Windows and use your recent data backup to restore

In case, you find issues with your backup or backup is not present, Disk Recovery applications provide the sure cure. These are commercial applications that use scanning algorithms, powerful enough to offer complete data recovery (unless data has not been overwritten). Data Recovery tools are safe for data integrity.

Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery is a robust Disk Recovery software. It natively supports Windows 7 (currently in RC 1), Vista, XP, 2003, and 2000. This data recovery software provides powerful features like, Disk Imaging, Drive Cloning, Drive Status etc. It supports recovery for FAT16, FAT32, VFAT, NTFS, and NTFS5 file systems.