Windows 7 64-bit boots to black screen with mouse only

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ajobbins

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# 79648 20-Mar-2011 19:12

Yesterday I installed Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit on my girlfriends computer for her. Everything installed fine and I installed all her applications, office etc and it all seemed to be working well. It did a couple of Windows Update cycles and all seemed well.

Today, she has turned on the machine and it has processed more Windows Updates, but now the computer just boots to a blank black screen with a mouse cursor, but you can't do anything.

We have tried repair options, but I system restore says there are no restore points (Really??) and other repair options seem to do nothing.

Even booting into Safe Mode just bring a blank screen and cursor. We can't use windows shortcuts to open command prompts or anything, and not even ctrl-alt-delete works.

I've googled the problem and can see a LOT of people have experienced this, but see little about a fix.

Has anyone ever come across this and managed to fix it without reinstalling Windows from scratch?

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# 450092 20-Mar-2011 19:21

i wonder if it went to sleep when it was updating and stuffed itself up - happened to me once on vista. what time frame did you set the sleep or hibernate setting?

there are thousands of other reasons but i am not a pro and do not understand debug etc ... anyone can?

Involuntary autocorrect in operation on mobile device. Apologies in advance.

freitasm

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# 450107 20-Mar-2011 19:50

Was the PC rebooted at that screen saying "Preparing to update Windows. Please do not turn off your computer" (or something like that) after you click shutdown?

ajobbins

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# 450113 20-Mar-2011 20:11

freitasm: Was the PC rebooted at that screen saying "Preparing to update Windows. Please do not turn off your computer" (or something like that) after you click shutdown?

Not that we are aware of

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gzt

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# 450196 20-Mar-2011 22:41

How about the "last known good configuration" boot menu option?

gzt

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# 450204 20-Mar-2011 22:54

If that fails, then (1) do the 'enable boot logging' option, and the only after that (2) attempt to boot to 'safe mode command prompt' and get the last 10 or so entries in c:\windows\ntbtlog.txt.

That might give some idea of what is happening at that stage.

By the way, sometimes in these cases, waiting a couple of hours during the boot might solve the problem..

MackinNZ

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# 450213 20-Mar-2011 23:17

When installing the updates did you install Service Pack 1? There have been some problems with SP1. This KB may be of some help http://support.microsoft.com/KB/975484

But peronally, if it's a new installation, I would just start again and be careful not to tick SP1 when doing the updates.

ajobbins

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# 450217 20-Mar-2011 23:44

gzt: How about the "last known good configuration" boot menu option?

Yup, didn't help

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ajobbins

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# 450218 20-Mar-2011 23:45

gzt: If that fails, then (1) do the 'enable boot logging' option, and the only after that (2) attempt to boot to 'safe mode command prompt' and get the last 10 or so entries in c:\windows\ntbtlog.txt.

That might give some idea of what is happening at that stage.

By the way, sometimes in these cases, waiting a couple of hours during the boot might solve the problem..

Can't boot into any safe modes, they just give the same thing

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ajobbins

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# 450219 20-Mar-2011 23:45

MackinNZ: When installing the updates did you install Service Pack 1? There have been some problems with SP1. This KB may be of some help http://support.microsoft.com/KB/975484

But peronally, if it's a new installation, I would just start again and be careful not to tick SP1 when doing the updates.

It hadn't got to SP1 yet

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jamezb3

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# 450223 20-Mar-2011 23:58

Could be an explorer problem? I had a similar thing happen to me, a little different though. A friend decided to call my explorer.exe .old. I just used mini xp to fix it on hirens boot CD.
I know it is frustrating but sometimes it is easier to start from scratch. Windows 7 can become corrupted from install to install. I have done countless reinstalls and with everyone th OS will act a little different.

gzt

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# 450224 21-Mar-2011 00:00

Give the boot logging thing a go anyway. Sometimes it will mysteriously shake things up. In any case, it is worthwhile doing that even if later you need to boot another o/s from usb or cdr to read the bootlog.

bigal_nz

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# 450236 21-Mar-2011 04:47

ajobbins:
MackinNZ: When installing the updates did you install Service Pack 1? There have been some problems with SP1. This KB may be of some help http://support.microsoft.com/KB/975484

But peronally, if it's a new installation, I would just start again and be careful not to tick SP1 when doing the updates.

It hadn't got to SP1 yet

You could boot from a Linux live CD and do a manual restore.

It involves copying the SAM, SYSTEM, SECURITY, DEFAULT and SOFTWARE files from the restore directory (I think under c:\system volume information) to C:\Windows\System32\Config

PM me if you want more info.

Infact you could use any live CD, BartPE etc.

-Al

CB_24

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# 450265 21-Mar-2011 08:53

Find a fix for this one?
We had it here on our company Windows 7 build, had to disable a certain local Windows policy and it resolved it

trig42

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# 450268 21-Mar-2011 08:58

I haven't seen it on Win7, but have seen it a few times on Vista (after updates). System restore solved it, but that's no good for you.

Was it a clean install?

dan

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# 450294 21-Mar-2011 10:18

heh, i had 2 Vista laptops at a customer get this on the same day a few weeks ago

I believe its nicked named 'black screen of death'

I spent some time trying to solve it, one PC couldnt get into safe mode just the black screen + mouse. One was able to get into safe mode, but a system restore did not solve it

In the end i just formatted and reinstalled the OS on the damn things, there wasnt alot of info out there how to solve this.

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