Win7 boots to blank screen (no login box), startup repair not working

We have a Windows 7 computer, fairly new Acer Inspire laptop. Recently, when it had turned itself off for power reasons, when we entered the login it first said 'not found' and then dropped to a screen that looks like the login background but without the login box. Ctrl+Alt+Delete doesn't work, you have to force hard boot. On rebooting, it recognizes that startup failed and offers an attempt to repair. I ran this about 40 times, I think it's clear that isn't fixing it. It boots to that plain screen, so it starts windows, but then just sits there.

I'm told the Windows 7 disk has a more detailed startup repair option that might allow us to solve this without losing a lot of critical data on the hard drive. However we cannot find the dang thing, we had a whole stack of info/disks/etc. I thought was in the box it came in, but when we got it down from the closet, box was empty, and we can't find any trace of any of the original materials. I don't know what to do. Is there some way just to get that repair-startup utility without having to purchase a whole new windows 7 disk? We are afraid to send it for warranty repair to Acer because the default 'repair' appears to be reverting back to default settings which would wipe out all our data.

Do you have any suggestions?

Many thanks,
PJ

No, that doesn't seem to be an option. It was hard being quick enough to get into anything pre-windows but I am only able to get into the menu that lets you choose the boot order, for example. (Ctrl+Alt+Delete doesn't do anything anymore, I have to force power-off by holding power key down for several seconds.) The only option it gives me is to 'repair startup' which doesn't work or start normally.

Is there a certain key that would get me there, that I could try?

Thank you for your response. I'm sorry for the delay in responding, work ate my life briefly.

PJ

Yes. Otherwise, we did find a Acer 'system disk' which I was able to boot off and it offered 'repair' -- and then made clear that repair would wipe all data from drive C: and would reinstate factory settings. I definitely do not want to do that and lose everything on the drive, which is why I'm trying to figure out how to fix it instead. Thanks for asking.

Best, Pj

I'm sorry, but I seem to be having the same problem and I just posted a topic similar to this: https://www.sevenforums.com/crashes-debugging/96319-not-able-login-startup.html

I, however, am willing to start over fresh without any files (as my computer is fairly new). Sorry to somewhat barge in on this topic, but I feel our problems are related.

richc46 said:

Give me computer mfg and model

It's a Dell Inspiron 1564. Not sure if you need more information than that.