When I turn the camera on no matter what I do the viewing screen is black. When I take a pictjure it flashes and everything and sometimes I can see a slight change in color in the pictjure but they are all still completly black when I view them before I take them, during, and after in "play" mode. Whats wrong? Any help is greatly appreciated thanks.

sounds like you have a CCD problem. There is a notice in sony website: " http://esupport.sony.com/perl/news-i...161&mdl=DSCU20 ". for free service for this problem but you need to hurry up, This offer for free shipping and repair ends September 2008. Follow the steps to check if it falls under the notice verification description and instructions and if it does, it will guide you to getting it taken care of.
It is caused by a substandard image sensor that after a while of being in hot environment, it will fail and give a black screen but all menus and indicators will still be visible on the LCD display screen.