Windows Me stops communicating with monitor on load

I'm trying to get some files off an old computer with Windows Me installed. I turn the computer on and everything runs fine. When it gets to the Windows Me load screen the monitor goes black, and a "no signal" message comes up. I've done many windows installs, reinstalls, formats, etc but I've never seen something like this happen. I tried booting with cd support and tried booting in safe mode, neither worked and same thing happened. I tried reinstalling windows me from the cd and the same thing still happened. All I need to do is get this thing to boot up so I can see the files and transfer them to a usb drive. I can hook the hard drive up to a different computer if that's what I need to do. Anyone know what is causing this problem?