Black login screen, only a cursor Windows 7 x64

Hello all,

I had some memory issues with my computer recently (had to adjust the timings) and now that they work (ran memtest86+ for 8 hours w/o an error) Windows 7 can't seem to boot.

Alright, so the login screen is black only with a cursor, the at ease panel, windows 7 pro logo (center bottom) and shutdown red button in it's normal position. Although the at ease button and shutdown button don't display anything when clicked (but they do work, example: I can shutdown using the shutdown button). The same thing happens for safe-mode.

OK, here's the strange thing: when my external hard drive is unplugged it goes straight to the above screen. But when the external hard drive is on while the boot starts I just get a complete black screen. When I turn it off (during the complete black screen phase) it'll go right to the regular one above with the logo/cursor only.

I've also entered repair and tried to restore to a previous point but it's pulling the from the E: drive which isn't the drive I installed windows 7 on. If you couldn't guess the E: drive was the label for the external hard drive.

Please help and I appreciate any feedback. I'll be at work soon and will be able to respond quickly all day but I won't be able to adjust my computer. Thanks!

Unfortunately pressing ctrl+alt+del does not bring up the task manager. Does anyone else have any idea what could be happening? I really think it's something with this external hard drive because why would it try booting from E: instead of C: ?

My E: drive is an external hard drive. I've been dealing with some memory crash issues that I have now resolved (thank god). Due to the memory crashes the system would cold boot (it would just keep turning on, memory error/crash/dump, restart, memory error/crash/dump, etc.). During this time (the cold boot phase) my external drive kept rebooting with the computer and somehow I think this messed something up.

I also have an external display hooked up from my computer to my TV (dvi to hdmi hookup). I've read some places that this is a problem so I unplugged the DVI cable. That didn't have any success so I don't think that's the problem.

The only thing that makes me think it's the external hard drive is that when I try to do a restore point it says there are none available. And trust me I've made plenty. So when I notice there were none available I checked which drive it was looking at and it's the E: drive.

Is there any command I can run to fix this? Like I said I'm able to get to the "Repair your computer" option out of the boot menu. I may just have to pop in the install CD and repair windows that way or possible due a clean install again UGH.

I think the "boot" location is incorrect. Does anyone know how to use the bcdedit command? I can give more details when i go home tonight.