Black screen after login, Safe mode OK

[WayneT]

My laptop seems to hang after the login screen, the screen either goes completely black or sometimes shows the desktop picture and an empty taskbar, but I am unable to do anything such as task manager. Leaving the system running for 10-15 minutes after trying ctrl-alt-del will bring up some error message, but I forget what it said, I'll try to get it again.

I can get into Safe Mode just fine, and ran the SF Diagnostic Tool from there, I have attached the files it created as requested. The laptop hung on me on shutdown before this issue started and after waiting for 30 minutes for it to try to shut down normally it wasn't responding so I had to power it down. I'm thinking that might've fudged something up but I'm unsure if there were any windows updates queued at the time or not.

I'm really unsure what to do at this point, there aren't any System Restore points, I didn't remember turning it off but I must have at some point.

 

[Kaktussoft]

Does a clean boot start succesfully?
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorial...ation-conflicts-performing-clean-startup.html
if so... turn your restore points on.

Post results

 

[Kaktussoft]

Leaving the system running for 10-15 minutes after trying ctrl-alt-del will bring up some error message, but I forget what it said, I'll try to get it again.

please give us the error message

 

[WayneT]

I finally got the error message to pop back up, been waiting this entire time for it to just appear. "Failure to display security and shut down options." "The logon process was unable to display security and logon options when CTRL + ALT + DELETE was pressed. If the operating system does not respon, press ESC or restart the computer by using the power switch."

 

[Kaktussoft]

First thing to to is in safe mode http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/783-elevated-command-prompt.html

chkdsk/f  c:
sfc/scannow

errors? fixed? eventually run it again

 

[WayneT]

I've ran chkdsk /f on reboot 2 times already, it found 1 error and fixed it but didn't change anything. Attempting SFC now twice it gets to Verification 9% complete and then after about 5 minutes it eventually says "Windows Resource Protection could not perform the requested operation."

 

[Kaktussoft]

I've ran chkdsk /f on reboot 2 times already, it found 1 error and fixed it but didn't change anything. Attempting SFC now twice it gets to Verification 9% complete and then after about 5 minutes it eventually says "Windows Resource Protection could not perform the requested operation."

very strange! Were you installing updates when problem occured?

Did you already try "clean boot"?

 

[WayneT]

I'm not sure if there was an update waiting or not, the problem first started yesterday after I had to power down when my system hung on the shutting down screen for 30 minutes when closing background programs but the list was empty.

I'll attempt a clean boot now and see if it works.

 

[WayneT]

Clean boot is booting fine, albeit a bit slower than my old normal boot, and the windows boot sound seems to be delayed a minute after boot but I don't know if that even means anything. It does seem to stay on the Welcome screen longer than it used to however. 3 clean boots all manage to get to desktop just fine though.

 

[Kaktussoft]

Follow http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorial...ation-conflicts-performing-clean-startup.html and find the malfunctioning service or startup program. Post results

 

[WayneT]

All services check out starting up just fine, going through startup programs now.

 

[WayneT]

I'm going to take a wild guess at this point and think my Avast! anti-virus fragged, as even re-enabling the program and service and restarting, the service keeps unchecking itself, but every other service and startup option runs fine. I'll just do a complete uninstall and reboot and then redownload it and see if it works, unless you think there's a better suggestion?

 

[Kaktussoft]

So it's not a service. Do the same trick with startup programs. Prove it is AVAST first.

What do you mean by "the service keeps unchecking itself"? Is it unchecked in the msconfig list or is service just stopped?

 

[WayneT]

I did multiple restarts while re-enabling everything after checking all the services and startup programs and every time Avast service would be unchecked when I went back into msconfig to look, and upon checking the Avast program itself without the service running it was unable to restart the service from inside the program and appeared to have also lost my registration data, which is what made me suspect it, since without it running, everything else was working just fine. I went ahead and did a reinstall and have been through multiple reboots and everything is working just great so it appears something fragged with it on the power down before the issue arised. Everything's been running well since without any errors and even on shutdowns I haven't been experiencing any slow shutdowns of background programs I was having for a few months before this, so it would appear to have been the cause. All the other services and programs are running fine now and I've been back using the laptop for the last 6 hours or so, everything appears to be well now.

Thanks for the help, I definitely would not have suspected this to be the problem but I'm glad it was as simple as this. I did malware and virus scans afterward just to be sure and came up clean.

 

[Kaktussoft]

Put the checkmark EVERYWERE or select "normal startup" in msconfig. But don't actually reboot! Then

• Uninstall AVAST
• Reboot (no problems?)

Then... do anything you want. Maybe reinstall some anti4us