black screen with cursor

adamsm3 · 30 Oct 2010

Hi. I hope someone can help me with this problem.

I left my computer on last Thursday when I went to work as I usually do. When I came home the screen was black with a cursor in the top left corner.

I tried rebooting, turning it off and on... Window 7 just won't load. I do not have a reboot disk or even a Windows 7 disk as it came already loaded on my computer. I think I made a back up disk but don't remember if I actually did. (If I did, I cannot find it.)

I am not completely computer stupid, but also I would never claim to be an expert either. I have never seen this happen before but from the other posts, it seems that it does.

Is this caused from a virus or is this a Windows 7 issue and how can I fix it? My computer is only a few months old......

usasma · 30 Oct 2010

Have you tried tapping the F8 key rapidly right after the BIOS splash screen disappears?
That should get you a menu that says "Repair this computer" at the top of the selections list (next will be "Safe Mode").

If that doesn't work, then use Option 2 in this post to make a Startup Repair disk: System Repair Disc - Create

Then use this post to run Startup Repair: Startup Repair
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If the above procedure doesn't fix the black screen, then try the System Restore option in Startup Repair - and set the system back to a point well before this issue happened.

If that doesn't work you'll be best off backing up your stuff (by slaving your hard drive to another system) and then wiping the hard drive and reinstalling Windows.
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If that doesn't work, then try these free, bootable diagnostics:

H/W Diagnostics:
Please start by running these bootable hardware diagnostics:
Memory Diagnostics (read the details at the link)
HD Diagnostic (read the details at the link)

Good luck!

adamsm3 · 03 Nov 2010

Thanks for the tips.

F8 does nothing.
Made System Repair Disk and tried Startup Repair.... Nada.
Tried system restore from a week before the problem and it said it did not work so I tried from the day before the last successful boot. It said it worked, but still nothing. I still have a black screen.

"If that doesn't work you'll be best off backing up your stuff (by slaving your hard drive to another system) and then wiping the hard drive and reinstalling Windows."
---I am not sure how to do that and I don't have the Windows installation disk as my computer came with Windows already installed.

Should I just take it in to a shop do you think?

usasma · 03 Nov 2010

You can take it to a shop, but that's just throwing money at the problem.

Backup requires a bootable disk that loads an OS to copy to your removable media. In most cases this'll be a USB hard drive - and that's built into most OS's. And, these disks are usually free.

As for restoring the computer, if you don't have the disks you can order them from the computer company. Here's a link for several of the major US OEM's: Order Recovery Discs (USA)