Black screen before login, can't go to safe mode, repair unsuccessful

OD33 · 22 Feb 2015

I'd really appreciate some help - for some reason my setup now won't get to the login screen, I get the green progress bar and (c) Microsoft, but no windows logo, then a black screen. When I restart I get taken to a screen telling me windows didn't start correctly, and to either launch startup repair or start windows normally. If I choose repair I eventually get a message saying startup repair cannot repair this computer, with the problem details showing:
Problem event name: startuprepairoffline
Signature 1: 0.0.0.0
2: 6.1.7.7600.16385
3: unknown
4: 21200435
5: autofailover
6: 8
7: norootcause
Os version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.256.1
Locale id: 1033

If I choose to boot normally I go to the same black screen. I am unable to press f8 to boot in safe mode because I always get taken to the "windows failed to start" screen first. From the system recovery screen I can launch the command prompt, and from there have run chkdsk which had no effect. I've also started notepad and have seen that my drives seem to be working okay. At some point I do remember seeing a message saying the problem was due to system configuration changes - I haven't changed the configuration but have tried disconnecting usb devices.

I'm stuck and would appreciate any help at all, have no idea what has gone wrong but did read something about it being related to login IDs...

americancritic2 · 22 Feb 2015

Hello OD33 and welcome to the sevenforums. I know what you are going through I had a lot of black screens and turned out to be a very nasty virus.

1. Since you can get the command prompt try this and see if it helps.

2. Go to your command prompt and type this, make sure you right click and run it as the administrator: sfc /scannow and let it run it might be awhile before it will finish. There is a space between the sfc and the forward slash. I don't know if you can download a tutorial or not but I will attach it any how. The sfc /scannow can repair a lot. After it has run it will come back with errors so run it 3 times if possible. Click the link.

SFC /SCANNOW Command - System File Checker

OD33 · 23 Feb 2015

Thanks for replying Americancritic, I ran sfc as you suggested, but it came back saying "Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations". I'm a bit at a loss as to what to do next, reinstalling windows and all of my programmes will be a bit of a nightmare and if it is as you say a virus then reinstalling might not even get rid of the problem... I tried booting from an Ubuntu cd to see if I could run a virus scan from there but my system hard drive doesn't show up there for some reason.

americancritic2 · 24 Feb 2015

You might want to download and run a full scan of ADW.

AdwCleaner Download

OD33 · 24 Feb 2015

Thanks Americancritic, I'll try that. I've now managed to find a way into safe mode, and even managed to boot once as normal after doing a virus scan and disabling my graphics card driver, then reinstalling it once I was able to log in, however the next time I started the computer the problem returned and I've been unable to repeat that success. I've remembered that I moved my PC last week and unseated the graphics card while the machine was running, could that have caused this problem? The graphics seem fine in safe mode and the PC did work normally for a day or two after, but I'm concerned I might have damaged something.