Windows wont boot up - Blank screen with cursor.

Hello guys!

I thought I would start to describe this issue by telling you what I screwed up on and how I made it happen: I accidentally set my backup drive as my primary (set the partition as active in CMD, it has no installation on it). Then when I went to boot my device, it would tell me that Windows was not installed. I put my C: (main, primary) partition as my default again (with CMD on installation disk) and I was able to get Windows to boot. Then I messed with the MBR to try to fix it and now this happens:

Current problem: When I boot Windows, it give me the old Vista-looking boot scroller (Not "starting windows" with the traditional animation). This animation only lasts for about 3 seconds, then it goes to a black screen with the cursor. That is all. Nothing loads, yet no error message. I tried using a few bootrec commands to fix it using the installation CD's CMD but no luck.

If anyone could help me I would GREATLY appreciate it. You would save my life and I would love you LONG time! Thanks guys

Why don't you just do a clean re-install of Windows 7? It would set everything in order. You can install your third party programs lost in this process all over again.

Take a look through these tutorials.
Troubleshooting Windows 7 Failure to Boot
MBR - Restore Windows 7 Master Boot Record
Repair Install

Stephen

Thanks for the help. I am very hesitant about having to reinstall all of Windows. I guess am I forced to do that. But before I do, please read this:

I forgot to mention that I followed a tutorial online that had me cd into /system32 and delete winload.exe. The computer first booted up but now it wont. Any help? Thanks again!

Tommy300z said:

Thanks for the help. I am very hesitant about having to reinstall all of Windows. I guess am I forced to do that. But before I do, please read this:

I forgot to mention that I followed a tutorial online that had me cd into /system32 and delete winload.exe. The computer first booted up but now it wont. Any help? Thanks again!

That program is the program that allows windows to logon. The only reason you should have deleted it is if it was not located in system32.
A repair install is really your only option. Repair Install

Stephen

Edit - Sorry, no it's not. That's winlogon.exe. Read my next post

Idea. Take a look at this. Coder for Life - Project - Windows 7 Boot Updater: Restoring winload.exe Manually

Thank you again. But this was the link that i used to delete winloader lol. When i tried this process again now cmd won't even cd into my c drive. I'll just restore a backup i have made a while back. One more question i promise: is there a way to restore windows to a certain partition? I will be dual booting with Mac and will set up a separate partition for windows.

Tommy300z said:

Thank you again. But this was the link that i used to delete winloader lol. When i tried this process again now cmd won't even cd into my c drive. I'll just restore a backup i have made a while back. One more question i promise: is there a way to restore windows to a certain partition? I will be dual booting with Mac and will set up a separate partition for windows.

Ask as many questions as you like, thats why we're here. Anyhow, the question is not my speciality. I know someone who specialises in partitions and installs. I'll ask him for a hand.

It depends on whether you used Windows backup imaging which restores to the same offset (position) on HD. To have more flexibility use free Macrium, or the premium Acronis app which comes free with any WD or Seagate HD in the mix.

You can mount a Win7 image .vhd in Disk mgmt then image it with one of the other apps which allow much more flexibility: Virtual Hard Disk - Create and Attach VHD

Or just reimage the Win7 backup and shrink it's partition as needed to Dual Boot. If you need to shrink from the left side use free Partition Wizard bootable CD, otherwise use Disk mgmt which are both the safest methods.