Black screen at boot with safe mode, system restore, or repair mode

[chris24]

Hello all
First time poster with problem after peforming sys restore on win7 pro 64bit.
Was troubleshooting a problem w/taskbar not staying hidden, tried to restore back 24hrs to when a java update occured. Restore seemed to proceed normally, but upon restart, it boots normally to just before the login screen would appear, then the screen goes black and all that is visible is the cursor , which I can still move.
But that's as far as it gets. Trying to boot in safe mode, or repair mode ends exact same way - can't boot in to try anything
Any ideas??

 

[chris24]

no one has any suggestions? I also triedtoboot to my win7 dvd to see if I could attempt to repair but again, it only gets thru the windows bootscreen then goes black with only the mouse cursor showing as before.

 

[ttran]

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

 

[chris24]

Yes, if only I could actually boot completely into Windows to do it.
But as I said, I can't even get that far. I get to where I see Starting windows screen, and then the screen goes black with only the mouse cursor being visible.
Can i assume that it is not a monitor/gpu issue, as I can at least see the cursor and move it onscreen?
This is freaking me out, I use this PC to work from home...

 

[ttran]

I don't think this is monitor or gpu issue. Go ahead and perform a repair install

 

[chris24]

hi ttran, thanks for your response.
However, can you walk me thru how to do this if i can't even boot windows up to login to it ?
The tutorial says to boot to windows and login as admin. So how can i even do this with a black screen??
I swapped out kybd & mouse just to eliminate then but no change
i can access bios , I hit F8 but don, get a repair option only start normally, safe mode , w\network etc but none of these choices get me a login screen

 

[chris24]

I found that i am able to boot using my win7 disk so i tried startup repair. It ran, restarted pc but i get same exact result
I' starting to think that it is not windows that is the problem I can see the hhd light working so it seems like it is booting just the screen drops to black & then thats it........

 

[chris24]

a bit more info i opened the repair details and it shows :
partition table does not have a valid system partition
action: partition table repair,completed successfully
restart computer

which i do which ends up with same exact issue..

why would s simple system restore mess up partition table?

 

[chris24]

so noone can offer me any solution?
I'm trying to avoid wiping all my work files emails etc

 

[cable]

It seems like it's a corrupt system restore or something-
I personally have two things to prepare for any disaster happening to my system:

Ubuntu Live USB on 16gb flash drive - to boot into Ubuntu and transfer files to my flash drive
Apricorn DriveWire - to take out the physical drive and transfer files like as if it were an external USB drive (got it at Fry's)

Honestly, if you cannot boot into Windows or if the Repair Setup doesn't work (which basically reinstalls the Win7 over your current copy), then the best bet is to wipe it clean.

 

[chris24]

Yeah, finally resigned myself to biting the bullet, and am heading over to Fry's at lunch for a new hhd.
Is there an advantage to using your recommended DriveWire over my drop-in docking station for retrieving data off the old drive? I'm seeing user comments about it that say it won't work with Win 7 64bit OS?

 

[cable]

Well, toaster would work just fine as all it does is provide power and connection to the bare hdd. My DriveWire works with all OS systems, and I'm sure the toaster would as well. Go ahead and test out your toaster before purchasing other gadgets.

 

[karlsnooks]

Chris,
Go into the bios and make 100% sure that you are set to boot 1st from CD/DVD.

Insert the win 7 dvd. Power ON. Remove power cable. Reconnect Power Cable. Power up.

Now when you see that very first screen on the display, use the SHIFT + F10 key combo to get to a command prompt.

Insert a USB stick. At that command prompt, you will be able to-via good old dos commands-copy your data from your computer to the usb. Perform a DIR on the USB to make sure you copied what you need.

Now use EXIT command to return to the WIN 7 DVD. Now you can do an install of WIN 7.

 

[chris24]

Hi Karl, thanks for your reply,

Unfortunately, the files that need transferring are too large to fit on my usb drive, & sadly, I'm a bit dim on DOS commands anyways these days.. (it's been a while lol)
My plan is to install a new hdd, do a clean install on it, then put the old hdd in my usb docking station & see if I can pull off the stuff i need from it.
The stuff I'm most worried about is getting all my emails & book marks off the C partition...FFox/T-Bird

 

[chris24]

Thanks Karl,
I must admit my DOS skills are weak, it's been quite a while.
My plan is now to install a new drive put Win7 on it, then drop my old one into my usb docking station & hopefully pull off the files I need. The ones i need on the C partition
(emails & bookmarks) are the ones I'm most worried about

 

[karlsnooks]

Chris,
Sounds like a good idea.

It's a little late now, but one of the main reasons I prefer google's mail, gmail, is that I can never lose my email and also my email is always accessible anywhere I have an internet connection.

For bookmarks, tags, I use XMarks. Once again then my bookmarks are accessible from anywhere.

I use Roboform for the same reasons for passwords and still more.

 

[mike6623]

I don't think this is monitor or gpu issue. Go ahead and perform a repair install

Wow, I am having the same problem and always get these responses saying...do a repair...are you reading and realizing that we CANNOT get to that point?