Windows 7: Why is 7 only booting when I have the installation disk in ?

Yesterday , randomly , when I turned on the computer I saw nothing but a black screen. It wasn't the black screen of death , looked like a windows black screen but it just wasn't displaying anything. Its almost like windows is operating normally in the background , its just not showing me. When I put the disk in it comes up occasionally and works fine , but when I shut down and turn it back on its back to the same ole thing.

I have windows 7 home premium , 32-bit. I read somewhere that I may need to check the boot order , but I have no idea how to do any of this.



Any Ideas ?

Thank you in advance.

Follow the tutorial Startup Repair minutely.

Run it at least three times, with restarts after every single run, and see if it boots normally or not. Post back with results.

Thanks for the quick response. I tried to do a repair , but it says it did not detect any problems. I also tried the recover option , but it could not find any recovery dates. Just yesterday it gave me the option to recover from 11/29 , now thats not even avaliable. Im leaning towards just cleanly installing windows 7 again

You need to get into the BIOS to check the boot order and that your hard drive is recognised by the BIOS.

You haven't given us any specifications so I can't give the specific instructions for your computer, but you can check the manual if you have one.

Try disabling the display adapter in safe mode.
Safe Mode

Why is my screen black when I start Windows 7?

If it starts with the Windows 7 DVD or Repair CD in the drive but not without it, then the boot files need repairing or rewriting.

But first you have to make sure the correct partition is marked Active so the Repair utility knows where to write the System boot files.

To do this boot free Partition Wizard bootable CD make sure the Windows 7 partition or its 100mb System Reserved partition (preferred if you have it) is marked Active. If not, rightclick to Modify>Set to Active, OK.

Next click on the Windows 7 HD to highlight it, from DIsk tab select Rebuild MBR, Apply, reboot. This may preclude the need to run 3 Startup Repairs. If not boot the Windows 7 DVD or Repair console to run Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Time.