Solved Black screen after BIOS load screen

[Gardeon]

AS the title says, I recently had a system restore last night after my windows 7 refuse to load. Having done so, it told me to click OK after the system restore to restart my laptop.

I complied and after the BIOS screen load, all i get was a black screen with this _ symbol and thats as far as it goes. Its like looking at a black picture with the symbol only. Anyone got any idea to solve this problem of mine please?


Specs:
Acer Aspire 4745G
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470 512MB
4GB RAM
Windows 7 Home Premium

 

[seavixen32]

If you have any USB devices other than keyboard and mouse, disconnect them, and do a hard shutdown by pressing the power switch down until your computer switches off.

Wait half a minute or so and try booting up again.

If that doesn't work, are you able to boot into Safe Mode?

Failing that you could try a repair install.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html

 

[Gardeon]

Thx for your reply, I tried to use that method, but I cant get into safe mode because just after my screen shows the BIOS bla bla bla, it then goes black immediately with this symbol _ on the top left of the screen.

It looks like my laptop hanged from that point on, and after a while, it shuts down automatically. I am at a loss in what to do right now as I do not have my Windows 7 Installation DVD since i bought my lappie. All they gave me is the recovery disc, which I had used 4 times and I get the same result everytime.

 

[rubyrubyroo]

the recovery dvd/cd does not boot?

do you have the optical drive set as the first bootdrive in BIOS?

 

[badger906]

Sound to me like no device is chosen as a primary boot drive. Go into bios or choose boot menu when the bios appears, and make sure your primary hard drive is actually in the list and or at the top. In the boot menu you can manually choose to boot from specific drives.

Sent from my BlackBerry 9900 using Tapatalk

 

[rubyrubyroo]

okay, thats sure to confuse him, 2 opposite requests

 

[Gardeon]

the recovery dvd/cd does not boot?

do you have the optical drive set as the first bootdrive in BIOS?

I set it to boot from my recovery disc as main priority as of now.

Sound to me like no device is chosen as a primary boot drive. Go into bios or choose boot menu when the bios appears, and make sure your primary hard drive is actually in the list and or at the top. In the boot menu you can manually choose to boot from specific drives.

Sent from my BlackBerry 9900 using Tapatalk

Booting my main hard drive results it in the black screen like usual and it will shut down automatically after a while(I don't get it?) Ctrl+alt+dlt won't work. alt+f10 doesn't either. I tried using startup repair but it says something about can't repair automatically.

Sorry, im not that good with computer stuffs...

 

[badger906]

Lol I was going to add that you can have optical as first, but I don't as I like a fast boot setup.
I was just going with the idea that the main drive isn't even in the boot order.

Sent from my BlackBerry 9900 using Tapatalk

 

[rubyrubyroo]

thats somewhat normal, you'll likely need to go through the process of startup repair, three consecutive times in a row, to do the repair

 

[rubyrubyroo]

the blinking cursor is many times a HW issue, (conflict/damage/aged) whereas you'll usually get a message "no system disk" type message if the hdd is not trying to boot from the mbr. which is where i go back to fixing the mbr by 3 reps of startup repair, with reboot inbetween each time. third time "load windws as nomal"

 

[Gardeon]

Well, the strange thing is that in my recovery discs there isn't any startup repair option, only system restore to factory default settings and OS restore with user data. Both didn't work and thats why I am posting in this forum.

I used my brother's Windows 7 Ultimate disc to do the startup repair however, it says it can't repair it automatically because there isn't any recovery image? So yeah, I cant do a startup repair.

 

[Gardeon]

the blinking cursor is many times a HW issue, (conflict/damage/aged) whereas you'll usually get a message "no system disk" type message if the hdd is not trying to boot from the mbr. which is where i go back to fixing the mbr by 3 reps of startup repair, with reboot inbetween each time. third time "load windws as nomal"

I detached my HDD and scanned with my brother's PC, its able to read and transfer files in it. And after the black screen with this _ symbol, it doesn't even blink, it just stays still there like its hanged.

 

[rubyrubyroo]

I believe there is no issues with doing a startup repair using a retail dvd, even though you have an OEM, and I just did it to a computer a few days ago (three reps) I'll find you a tutorial link, but it will take a min to find.


the startup repair should just repair the master boot record to make the system disk the disk that boots, each time it will give various messages and the time it takes will change from a long time to a quck run as you proceed through each of the three times. The messages i got were "windows repair is unable to fix the problem you have" or somehting along those lines, the second time it changed to "no problem was detected" i think (although the "show log" did have one root casue of error - do don't pay attntion to the results mesages.) and the last time it went back to the firstmessage, then windows booted fine. but since it isn't a quick process, a mistake will require starting over the "three times", so I'd rather give you a good lnk to a detailed tutorial on this site that will be sure you comptete every step.


i'll get you the lnk

mike

 

[rubyrubyroo]

there are two, read them both all the way through first:
the first will explain how to set the drive as the active drive
and then it has a two part tutorial, the second half applies to you since you cannot do this from windows.
use the retail disc.
heres the first link
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/105541-startup-repair-run-3-separate-times.html

and the second:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/681-startup-repair.html?ltr=S

 

[Gardeon]

Thx for your reply, will get back to you once I've tried them out. Gotta go sleep first, haven't taken a break since this morning.

 

[rubyrubyroo]

i havnt been to sleep since yesterday morning and its 10:19am the following day, so I hear ya

mike

 

[Gardeon]

OK, so here's how i solved my problem. My bro suggested i format the hard drive from the windows 7 installation disk and do a system restore again. I tried it and voila, my Windows is back again.

But i have another problem coming... There is this window that keeps popping up and says "windows has detected a hard disk problem" the options given to me are:

-Do a backup
-Remind me again later
-Do not remind me again

I searched all over the net and all I got is they ask to get a new hard disk. Is there any solution without having to replace my current one?
I tried using seatools and it says in the short DST test = DST-fail
SMART fail too

 

[seavixen32]

Get your data off that drive and replace it as soon as possible.

You've had prior warning from Windows and Seagate diagnostics that your hard drive is about to fail and it would be folly to ignore those warnings.

 

[rubyrubyroo]

did you preform the backup windows offered?

If you have many or important/irreplaceable files, make a windows backup and if you have enough storage space I suggest using a second backup method - different software, and/or an image, as the drive errors will likely result in some lost files to corruption, and a different s/w occasionally will copy a file or folder that the other could not. (plus if your backup becomes damaged, .... you get the idea)

no theres nothing realistic for you to fix a hardware issue onn a HDD, unless you are rather wealthy

keep the HDD cool if possible during the backup, and after words when you have your backups fully done, you can check the disk further, although I'd never use it for anything of any importance again. If you had for instance a root-kit/boot-kit, the formatting would not have likely fixed it, you'd need yo wipe it first to actually write over the files with the equivalent of "white noise", but i don't know if they would result in the errors you were told you had, just break down an get a inexpensive mid-range 2.5" HDD for $50-100, it'll be an upgrade as well!

The root-kit I mentioned was to let you know the drive may not be safe, and to be safe should be treated as such.

good luck, and let us know how it goes!
Mike

 

[Gardeon]

:shock: Oh man, thats sad news and I'm not wealthy either, just a normal student who needs to find funds for college fees, ah well... Is HD replacement included in warranty? Coz I'll definitely need that a lot.

I've saved my important files in my brother's netbook at the moment, just to be on the safe side. Seeing as my HDD is in that state, I guess that replacing it is the only way left. Well, thx for the reply guys, appreciate your help a lot. Will report if something new comes up.