Black screen of death with mouse pointer - acer aspire 5732Z

Hi all

My mother in law has an acer aspire 5732Z, yesterday she was fiddling with the touch pad sensitivity and suddenly her screen went black. Each time she tries restarting, she gets the windows 7 startup screen, but just before getting to the log in screen, the screen goes black. The mouse pointer is still on the screen and she can hear that the computer is still on. But besides that, nothing can make it start up properly.

I have tried talking her through safe mode startup, but that didn't do anything. She has pulled out the battery and restarted, which does nothing either. What else can we try? This is less than 1 year old.

Thanks for any help

Oh another note. This does not seem anything like the blue screen of death, which I experienced about a year ago with my own Dell laptop.

When you say Safe Mode didn't work, do you mean the problem was the same when trying to boot Safe Mode?

Also, you say she tried a restart without the battery. Did she do the steps outlined in Use Hard Reset to Resolve Hardware and Software Issues (this works with all computers, not just HP Pavilions)?

Hi
Thanks for the advice, however it didn't do the trick.
Eventually after trying to restore normal functions using a restore point, eventually it worked. I am not sure why it suddenly worked or what was done differently, but it is now working and a full backup is underway.

Thanks

You're welcome. Glad it was resolved with a restore point.

Backups are always a good idea, too.