PC screen blank -advice please!

[srisky]

Hi all,

It's good to know that my PC has had a decent life span. I haven't excluded any of the suggested avenues (I don't know enough about computers to do that) so I may yet replace the hard drive or bin the whole lot. However, before I decide I need someone cleverer than me to look at it! The useful advice posted here has taken me beyond the limits of my computer skills, so to that end your time has not been wasted!

P.s I'm a she/her

[HAL9000]

Don't forget - until it is fixed or sings Daisy for you, don't go out without your

.

[Undisputedtruth]

Sorry srisky, I've had no idea what gender you were. What avenue you decide to choose will depend entirely on your budget and IT needs.

From my own experience, I've had a laptop that was constantly shutting down after 5/10 minutes of usage. I wasn't ready to buy a new one so I contacted a number of Engineers for repair quotes. Quotes were ?300 plus parts costs. It got really weird when one Engineer warned about rogue Engineers swapping good quality working components with poor ones. So in the end I repaired my own laptop by tracing the fault to the graphics card and cost of replacing this item was only ?95. Thus saving a small fortune.

[srisky]

'Sorry srisky, I've had no idea what gender you were'

No need to apologise, there's no way you can tell from my user name.

The latest is that the original hard drive is not being recognised. This may have been the case since the 12th, as up until yesterday there was an external drive with backed up files still attached. I now realise that the computer was attempting to install windows xp on the external drive but wasn't able to as it's memory is really small. It was only when I remembered that it was still attached and removed it to prevent corruption that I realised that the original internal hard drive was not being recognised. I fear I have sent you all on a wild goose chase!

I would love to be able work out the problem and fix it myself but I just don't have the know-how!

[Undisputedtruth]

It sounds as though the settings in Bios gave priority to USB over the internal hard drive.

Never mind, at least your system is working now. You can change the settings in Bios so that it will boot from the hard drive first, then the DVD drive and finally USB.

[New Nexus]

BIOS access on Dell hit delete or F2 at boot, reset first boot HDD may also be shown as IDE.

If problem continue maybe BIOS battery loss power and can not hold Bios setting when switch off, new Battery cost about ?1.