Screen goes black

Hi, I was trying to do clean install windows 7 with an upgrade dvd from dell.
I have Vista Home Premium 64-bit and I'm trying to upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. I've never done anything like this before so I used the tutorials on this very helpful site. When I get to step #8 on the tutorial, I saw that I had 3 partitions: OEM reserved, recovery, and system. I deleted the recovery partition and then formated the system one. I clicked next and it did its thing. Then it restarted. I didn't see the screen from step #10, however. I saw a screen that said "setup updating registery settings" and "setup is starting." Then it went back to the #9 screen. It said it was "completing installation" and the green bar was under the word "during", from the sentence above. Then I got a black screen for 2 minutes, the computer resarted and I got another black screen after "the press any key." This one was on for 25 minutes. I got fed up and just restarted. Now I'm back on the #8 screen. I do not know what to do. Please help.

Delete the OEM reserved partition too, and try again.

Thanks for the replies.

Frostmourne said:

Delete the OEM reserved partition too, and try again.

I deleted the OEM partition so now it says that I have the system partition and an unallocated partition that used to be the recovery partition. So nothing changed and I'm back on the black screen. It has been up for almost 25 minutes. I have no idea why this is happening.

i reinstalled vista and then tried to clean install windows 7 but it was a no go. i got that evil black screen again.

I'm still having the same problems. Dell sent me a new Windows 7 DVD but that one resulted with the same horrid black screen. It always happens in the same sequence. I even tried upgrading from within Vista instead of booting into the upgrade DVD. I also ran some hard drive diagnostic tests and they passed. The people at Dell say that I haven't done anything wrong and they have no clue why this is happening. It's not the DVDs nor the hard drive. I just got off the phone with them again and they are sending me a "new" hard drive just to see if it works. I wish I didn't have to replace any hardware but I haven't been able to use my computer in days and I want it back. I'm so glad that I got the best warranty deal they had.

Let's try first making sure the slate is wiped completely clean.

Boot from the Win7 DVD, select Custom install, then use Drive tools to delete all partitions, create one big new one with all of the space, format it and install.

It will likely want to install a 100mb system reserved partition which is fine as it will make your Repair tools conveniently available when tapping F8 at bootup (instead of having to use the DVD).

Now you know you have the cleanest possible slate to install upon. See if it recreates the black-screen problem.

Next use Windows Memory Diagnostics or bootable memtest86 test to test the memory.

There are no system specs in your post (bottom left hand link) so our ability to help is limited.
We don't even know if you have a laptop or desktop.

If the new HD doesn't help, you can always install Win7 in another machine and move the HD back to your machine before activating - I have done this a number of times and it works well after auto-switching out all the drivers, requiring several prompted restarts.

Thank you for responding. Here's what I got...

gregrocker said:

It will likely want to install a 100mb system reserved partition which is fine as it will make your Repair tools conveniently available when tapping F8 at bootup (instead of having to use the DVD).

Now you know you have the cleanest possible slate to install upon. See if it recreates the black-screen problem.

I did just as you explained and it did make a 100mb reserved partition. I wish I could say that it worked but it did not.

gregrocker said:

Next use Windows Memory Diagnostics or bootable memtest86 test to test the memory.

I'm not sure how to acess this. In the meantime, I tried using my Dell Drivers and Utilities DVD to test the memory; It passed all tests.

gregrocker said:

There are no system specs in your post (bottom left hand link) so our ability to help is limited.
We don't even know if you have a laptop or desktop.

I updated the list.

Try removing all but 2 gigs of RAM and boot DVD for Custom install again.

Were you able to get the Custom Drive Tools to delete all of the partitions, then create a new one successfully? Is this when it added the 100mb System reserved partition?

The symptoms you describe are often caused when the video card is first loaded and has an output other than the monitor, or there is a tv tuner card outputted differently. Do you have these?

Are you able to default to onboard graphics to try that as well? Unplug video card if so.

If you are still stuck at the step you describe in your original post, then try this first: reboot into Win7 DVD, select Repair My computer and note exactly what it finds to repair. If so, then try running Startup Repair to see if it will jog it to start.

Next, reboot and tap F8 repeatedly and attempt to access Safe Mode or low resolution mode from which you can further troubleshoot apparent video card problems.

There is a BIOS update A13 for that model XPS 435T. Check your current BIOS version on first bootup screen or by entering BIOS setup.

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