Hi, I've had an OEM version of windows 7 for a couple years now, but now whenever I boot up, the screen shows "Starting Windows" with the logo animation above it then goes blank. There is no cursor, and my keyboard doesn't work (num lock doesn't toggle). If I hard reboot or use my reset button (only after I get stuck on the black screen) the screen skips to the "Windows Error Recovery" screen, where I can launch startup repair or start windows normally. My keyboard DOES work while in this mode, including the num lock toggle. Starting normally shows the blank screen again, while the system recovery option opens the recovery manager. I can boot just fine using safe mode (pressing f8), but don't really know what I can do from that "Advanced Boot Options" menu or when actually in safe mode. I read somewhere that I should look at the startup processes, but I don't know how to go about doing that or what to do after.
Extra info if you want to read:
- Sometimes after the blank screen stays for a little while, the computer will soft reboot by itself and cut to the windows error recovery again.
-In recovery manager, both my keyboard and cursor work, and I can either do a "microsoft system restore", "system recovery", or "file backup program". System recovery wipes everything so I want to avoid that, but I tried the microsoft system restore (to a date prior to the problem) and it didn't work. I get this: "System restore did not complete successfully. Your computers system files and settings were not changed. An unspecified error occurred during system restore. (0x8000ffff)". However, upon going into safe mode, it says the system restore has completed successfully, but the boot up problem continues.
- I hadn't done anything different with the computer except playing a DVD (first time ever using the disc drive though) for the couple days before the problem started. Could the program I use to read DVD's be the problem?
- I knocked a capacitor loose on my mobo 6 months back but it had no effect on anything except for one video game, but I pushed it back into place and everything ran fine.
- I changed out the video card (Radeon HD 6870) and PSU early on (from the stock HP build).
- I really don't have anything important on this computer, but I'd like to save as much as I can if possible. If a full system recovery wipe would fix it, I'd do it, but if it won't fix the problem, I don't want to lose all my data for nothing.
I have no idea if this is a hardware or software problem, but I'm open to anything and I'll try to answer any questions.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks
- Aaron
Extra info if you want to read:
- Sometimes after the blank screen stays for a little while, the computer will soft reboot by itself and cut to the windows error recovery again.
-In recovery manager, both my keyboard and cursor work, and I can either do a "microsoft system restore", "system recovery", or "file backup program". System recovery wipes everything so I want to avoid that, but I tried the microsoft system restore (to a date prior to the problem) and it didn't work. I get this: "System restore did not complete successfully. Your computers system files and settings were not changed. An unspecified error occurred during system restore. (0x8000ffff)". However, upon going into safe mode, it says the system restore has completed successfully, but the boot up problem continues.
- I hadn't done anything different with the computer except playing a DVD (first time ever using the disc drive though) for the couple days before the problem started. Could the program I use to read DVD's be the problem?
- I knocked a capacitor loose on my mobo 6 months back but it had no effect on anything except for one video game, but I pushed it back into place and everything ran fine.
- I changed out the video card (Radeon HD 6870) and PSU early on (from the stock HP build).
- I really don't have anything important on this computer, but I'd like to save as much as I can if possible. If a full system recovery wipe would fix it, I'd do it, but if it won't fix the problem, I don't want to lose all my data for nothing.
I have no idea if this is a hardware or software problem, but I'm open to anything and I'll try to answer any questions.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks
- Aaron