IMac 27" flashes to white on startup, chimes, then goes to a black screen. It works fine on an external monitor. Any ideas how I can fix this?

I've got a late 2009 iMac 27". When I start it up, it chimes and makes all the normal sounds. The screen flashes white for 2 seconds, then goes black. The iMac starts up (if I use an external monitor, it works fine) but the screen remains black.
Weirdly, if I start it up on Bootcamp as a Windows machine, it flashes white, then flashes briefly a few seconds later on the Windows logo, then goes to black.
I've reformatted the hard drive and performed a clean install of Lion. I've got some Apple knowledge, so I've taken the front bezel off and checked for loose connections. Everything appears fine. All 4 diagnostic lights are on on the logic board.
I'm stumped. I don't want to splash out on a new LCD screen if it's the inverter or something else that's the problem
Any ideas welcome!

Ah. I'm not able to run the hardware test because it only works on the main screen. There's no obvious way to switch to an external monitor when AHT is running, which is ridiculous if the hardware fault concerns the screen! The problem isn't with the backlight - there is no dimmed image on the screen, it is just off.
I'll just have to use it with an external monitor, I guess - which defeats the purpose of buying an iMac!
Thanks for your help, though.

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