Windows 7 upgrade, black screen

Hi, please help! I read that the upgrade from Vista to Windows 7 could take a while, so I opted to leave it overnight. When I checked my Dell laptop this morning, the screen was black, with the fan on, power light on and WiFi light on. I decided to shut down my laptop, and reboot it. The power light comes on, the fan kicks in, and that is it! Nothing else whatsoever. I have looked everywhere for a solution, but nothing. I have left in and removed the cd rom disc, nothing makes a difference. Any options welcome, no matter how drastic!

Do you have a normal Windows 7 installation disc and a 25 character Product Key?

If so, you should be able to boot directly from that disc, install Windows 7, and then activate.

I have no idea what has occurred.

You should do the installation on AC power, not battery.

Did you back up your data before beginning the installation?

Hi yes have the disc and I have restarted with it in. Completely black with no attempt to Boot. The install started fine with no issues, except I had to uninstall I tunes and acrobat reader following the compatibility check. I'm really stumped

What type of disc? What exactly does it say on the disc?

Have you been into the BIOS to set the DVD as the first boot device? If not, how do you know your PC is even attempting to boot from the DVD?

Did you backup your data before beginning?

The disc I believe is a copy with a corporate company key allowing multiple users. The dvd has been used by a few others with no issues, hence I thought I would try it. I only backed up my desktop files, no BIOS info or anything like that. I do not know whether it has been set to boot from the Rom drive, but when I had vista working it booted in the normal manner

Oh, the version is for Ultimate

Nathc said:

The disc I believe is a copy with a corporate company key allowing multiple users. The dvd has been used by a few others with no issues, hence I thought I would try it. I only backed up my desktop files, no BIOS info or anything like that. I do not know whether it has been set to boot from the Rom drive, but when I had vista working it booted in the normal manner

That sounds perfectly dodgy and bogus.

Regardless, if you are not booting from the DVD, you are not going to install Windows from that disc.

How you boot from the DVD varies from PC to PC, but since we know absolutely nothing about your particular PC, it's a little difficult to help.

Try filling in your system specs (lower left corner of your posts) via the User Control Panel at the top of the screen. That's a good starting point.


Since you backed up only desktop files, I assume you have nothing else you care about on the hard drive--mp3s, videos, email, bookmarks, etc.

Ok will do. I admit a bit risky, but as I said earlier, the install took off ok!