help please..laptop shows boot screen then screen goes black

when i turn on my laptop it shows the boot screen and immediately goes to a black screen. i cant even go to the setup screen or boot selection screen. whenever i press the keys to do so the screen says entering boot device selection or setup and then goes black again. i tried the system recovery cd with no luck. i didnt install or update anything on my laptop prior to this. one day it was working great then the next day it goes to the boot screen then to a black screen. my laptop is a toshiba satellite a215-s4807 that i bought in october 2007. can some help me???

thanks,
charlie

Connect an external monitor to it.

don2007 i just tried that...still nothing

When the screen goes black, do all the lights go with it? Do you have the power supply connected when you try it?

the only lights that come on throughout the entire process are: the power light, the battery light, and the word satellite. once the boot screen goes away and the screen goes to black the battery light goes away. i have tried to turn it on with my power chord connected and with it unplugged.

Do you know anyone else with a Toshiba? Try to test it with another power supply.

Try Removing the CMOS battery and putting it back in.

A friend of mine had a similar issue where he would get to the boot screen and it would just completely hang. He said he removed the CMOS battery and put it back in and he was able to boot into safe mode after that and reinstalled the OS.