Black Screen of Death

[chaps2013]

Everytime I turn on my laptop I get a black screen after the Dell logo pops up. This has been happening for atleast a month now. The last time I got it to completely boot up I ran virus scans, malware scans, and tried doing a restore with all no such luck. The last thing I did on my laptop was create a PowerPoint presentation with no new hardware or software configuration. I took my laptop to my schools IT department and couldn't get it to boot up as well. any suggestions?

The laptop is Dell Studio 1558 with Windows 7 and an Intel Core i3.

 

[Kaktussoft]

Does it boot fine sometimes? Can it boot from bootable DVD for example a win7 install DVD?

do you have a win7 install DVD or win7 system repair disk?

 

[chaps2013]

Not really. The screen becomes black after the Dell logo and stays like that for a few minutes until a message pops up asking if I want to repair Windows. After selecting that option the loading Windows with a status bar comes up. It freezes at about 70% until I do a force shut down. I have not tried booting it with the installation DVD yet.

 

[Kaktussoft]

Not really. The screen becomes black after the Dell logo and stays like that for a few minutes until a message pops up asking if I want to repair Windows. After selecting that option the loading Windows with a status bar comes up. It freezes at about 70% until I do a force shut down. I have not tried booting it with the installation DVD yet.

in windows recovery environment (boot from dvd)

diskpart
list disk (how many do you see?)
list vol
exit

Which volumes do you see and what is the purpose of each (not interested in DVD drives)?

 

[Kaktussoft]

Assume diskpart output gives you C,D,E (ignore the DVD and usb drive letters!)

chkdsk/f  c:
chkdsk/f  d:
chkdsk/f  e:

Any errors? repaired? If errors.. run command again... no errors anymore?

 

[chaps2013]

I don't think I did it right. The laptop was trying to install Windows 7.

 

[Britton30]

I don't think I did it right. The laptop was trying to install Windows 7.

He should have mentioned this. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/682-command-prompt-startup.html

 

[chaps2013]

Not really. The screen becomes black after the Dell logo and stays like that for a few minutes until a message pops up asking if I want to repair Windows. After selecting that option the loading Windows with a status bar comes up. It freezes at about 70% until I do a force shut down. I have not tried booting it with the installation DVD yet.

in windows recovery environment (boot from dvd)

diskpart
list disk (how many do you see?)
list vol
exit

Which volumes do you see and what is the purpose of each (not interested in DVD drives)?

Volume 1: is Ltr C: labeled as Recovery, Fs: NTFS, Type: Partition, Status: Healthy
Volume 2: Lrt: D, Label: OS, Fs: NTFS, Type: Partition, Status: Healthy

For the different disk checks I don't believe I found any errors.

Britton30: Thank you for the advice. It helped alot

 

[Kaktussoft]

Not really. The screen becomes black after the Dell logo and stays like that for a few minutes until a message pops up asking if I want to repair Windows. After selecting that option the loading Windows with a status bar comes up. It freezes at about 70% until I do a force shut down. I have not tried booting it with the installation DVD yet.

in windows recovery environment (boot from dvd)

diskpart
list disk (how many do you see?)
list vol
exit

Which volumes do you see and what is the purpose of each (not interested in DVD drives)?

Volume 1: is Ltr C: labeled as Recovery, Fs: NTFS, Type: Partition, Status: Healthy
Volume 2: Lrt: D, Label: OS, Fs: NTFS, Type: Partition, Status: Healthy

For the different disk checks I don't believe I found any errors.

Britton30: Thank you for the advice. It helped alot

diskpart
sel  vol c
det part
sel vol d
det part
exit

Which one is active?

In same window type:

bootrec/fixmbr
bootrec/fixboot

both succesful?

 

[chaps2013]

I couldn't get it to pull up the installation DVD. I started running some tests and got and got an error code: 0146 and OFOO:1332. I looked the codes up which pointed to Hard Drive failure.

 

[Kaktussoft]

I couldn't get it to pull up the installation DVD. I started running some tests and got and got an error code: 0146 and OFOO:1332. I looked the codes up which pointed to Hard Drive failure.

What test did you run?

It is almost sure some kind of disk problem. Even win7 recovery environment (sort of seperate mini win7) fails.

 

[Kaktussoft]

I couldn't get it to pull up the installation DVD. I started running some tests and got and got an error code: 0146 and OFOO:1332. I looked the codes up which pointed to Hard Drive failure.

It wasn't able to boot from installation DVD? Did it try to boot from it? Any error messages? Tell me exact what happens.

 

[chaps2013]

I ran diagnostics which came up with the error number for hard drive failure. I then ran memory tests where blocks were failing. When I tried booting from the DVD it would freeze on the windows starting screen and the Microsoft flag flashing.

 

[Kaktussoft]

I ran diagnostics which came up with the error number for hard drive failure. I then ran memory tests where blocks were failing. When I tried booting from the DVD it would freeze on the windows starting screen and the Microsoft flag flashing.

So disk looks faulty? Memory test gave errors as well. boot from DVD freezes. Does it really freeze, so animated flag isn't moving anymore?

When troubleshooting professionals assume only one error. The error is faulty memory! This causes all kind of errors. Disk looks faulty because program that checks it gets wrong data from memory. also booting from DVD is totally confused.

Run memory diagnostics again. Is it always bank 0 or 1 (so same memory bank) that looks faulty? If so remove that memory and test again. Put the non working memory bank in working slot. That's the way to prove memory is faulty or slot on motherboard is faulty. Post results. If slot is faulty...don't use that slot. If memory bank is faulty... replace it.

 

[chaps2013]

I took the hard drive to an IT Technician today and he agreed with me that the hard drive is no longer good. He couldn't get anything too pull up from the hard drive. He said he thinks the dick in the hard drive was not moving at all.

 

[Kaktussoft]

I took the hard drive to an IT Technician today and he agreed with me that the hard drive is no longer good. He couldn't get anything too pull up from the hard drive. He said he thinks the dick in the hard drive was not moving at all.

But you told me you have memory errors as well! Both faulty disk and memory....very unlikely. Fix memory errors first!

 

[chaps2013]

I just figured the memory errors were from the hard drive. Ill send you the error codes i have in about thirty minutes or so.

 

[Kaktussoft]

I just figured the memory errors were from the hard drive. Ill send you the error codes i have in about thirty minutes or so.

Don't understand what you're trying to say. If you have faulty memory, it can't be caused by faulty harddisk