Black Screen w/mouse pointer - Gateway Laptop

[robbymartin]

I have a Gateway MX8738 laptop and I recently installed Windows 7 as an upgrade from Vista. After the install everything was fine for a day until I noticed that ALL PROGRAMS on the Start Menu was empty so I attempted to reboot to see if it would resolve the issue. It then went into a scan/repair mode and attempted to reboot after scanning and now it's stuck in the Black Screen. It never gets to a Windows logo or the login screen, it just freezes. It will boot up to the Windows 7 CD and to the System Recovery Options but none of these options are working. I even attempted to reinstall the 'upgrade' but it won't let me unless I'm in Windows. I DO NOT WANT TO DO A CLEAN INSTALL BECAUSE I HAVE TOO MUCH INFO TO LOSE.

HELP!!!!!

 

[Product FRED]

Use an Ubuntu Live CD to move your important stuff to another location, and then perform a clean install. Your data that was carried over from Vista is in C:\windows.old.

Have you tried accessing the command prompt from your CD? If you can, use the fixboot command. You should always perform a clean install because stability is more important than convienience. Most people will tell you that.

 

[robbymartin]

Use an Ubuntu Live CD to move your important stuff to another location, and then perform a clean install. Your data that was carried over from Vista is in C:\windows.old.

Have you tried accessing the command prompt from your CD? If you can, use the fixboot command. You should always perform a clean install because stability is more important than convienience. Most people will tell you that.

I don't know anything about Ubuntu. What does it do? I'm willing to try it if I don't lose my programs and data.
And I don't see fixboot anywhere in any of the directories. Does it have a another name?

 

[Product FRED]

It's a form of Linux. Download it and burn it using another computer. You don't need to install it; you can run
it from disc. It has a windows-like interface.

Fixboot is not a directory. It's a command. Go into command prompt using your Windows 7 DVD and type fixboot. Then hit enter and restart.

 

[robbymartin]

It's a form of Linux. Download it and burn it using another computer. You don't need to install it; you can run
it from disc. It has a windows-like interface.

Fixboot is not a directory. It's a command. Go into command prompt using your Windows 7 DVD and type fixboot. Then hit enter and restart.

I'm downloading Ubuntu but until its done downloading I have to try other options.

'fixboot' is not recognozed.........

Any other suggestions?

 

[Product FRED]

Try bootsect /fixboot and bootsect /fixmbr

fixboot should have been recognized by the way.