[bwarech]

Okay,

I got a Dell Inspiron 1525 from Best buy 2-3 months ago.
I installed a wireless mouse last night, no problem.
This morning, I have a black screen when I tried to start up my computer.
Graphics wouldn't come up so I held in the power button to restart.
Nothing.
A black screen with a movable cursor came up. Im pretty technical and tried every small fix I know. So I broadened my options.
I called Microsoft but they were closed (midnight EST) so I got sent to Dell.
Dell sent me to GeekSquad b/c I got it from BestBuy.

This is what GeekSquad Said:
Me: (Explained Issue)
Man on Phone: Yea, we've been seeing it a lot lately. I think its a MS update or something.
Me: So What are my options?
Man: Well, you can have a tech come to your house, you can come in to your local best buy, or you can do it from home.
Me: Oh, how can I do it from home?
Man: Well we have to reformat your disk. That erases Everything on it.
Me: Yea, I cant do that. How much is it for a tech to come out b.c i cant lose all my info
Man: $299.99 for a tech to come to your house
Me: FOR A MICROSOFT PROBLEM?
Man:Ya
Me: GREAT

So I am here, no one knows what to do, and I am stuck with my old crappy laptop.

Please help if you have encountered this same Black Screen of Death and need it fixed.

Brandon

[Mumbodog]

There are only a few things that cause the black screen of Death.

0. Usb devices plugged in during boot, unplug them to see if normal boot returns, article is for XP but can apply to Vista also.
http://support.dell.com/support/topi...607&doclang=en

1. http://support.dell.com/support/topi...4D5&doclang=en

2. http://support.dell.com/support/topi...FF8&doclang=en

3. Worst case
http://support.dell.com/support/topi...41C&doclang=en


You can try a Vista startup repair.
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tuto...torial148.html

[Mrcrowley1967]

I think what he is saying is you can move mouse around the screen but it is a black screen. One thing I can add is hard drive light is allways active but non spuratic not locked on could a update be installing?

[john.piggott]

Originally Posted by bwarech

Okay,

I got a Dell Inspiron 1525 from Best buy 2-3 months ago.
I installed a wireless mouse last night, no problem.
This morning, I have a black screen when I tried to start up my computer.
Graphics wouldn't come up so I held in the power button to restart.
Nothing.
A black screen with a movable cursor came up. Im pretty technical and tried every small fix I know. So I broadened my options.
I called Microsoft but they were closed (midnight EST) so I got sent to Dell.
Dell sent me to GeekSquad b/c I got it from BestBuy.

This is what GeekSquad Said:
Me: (Explained Issue)
Man on Phone: Yea, we've been seeing it a lot lately. I think its a MS update or something.
Me: So What are my options?
Man: Well, you can have a tech come to your house, you can come in to your local best buy, or you can do it from home.
Me: Oh, how can I do it from home?
Man: Well we have to reformat your disk. That erases Everything on it.
Me: Yea, I cant do that. How much is it for a tech to come out b.c i cant lose all my info
Man: $299.99 for a tech to come to your house
Me: FOR A MICROSOFT PROBLEM?
Man:Ya
Me: GREAT

So I am here, no one knows what to do, and I am stuck with my old crappy laptop.

Please help if you have encountered this same Black Screen of Death and need it fixed.

Brandon

I am an old time tech from the early 90s. I had the same problem with a new HP pavillion dv7 and vista. I figured out how to get to safe mode and start windows. I booted to safe with cmd prompt. I then ran chkdsk to verify the hard drive. I then ran the command to start windows. Which as every tech knows is "explorer" without the quotes. I then restarted the laptop normally and the problem was resolved. This beats the hell out of hiring Geeksquad to come over and charge you to reinstall your system and loose all of yoiur data, applications and config. I'm actually suspprized that a professionnal would recommend such a drastic solution. I guess that there are professionnals and then there are the rest of us techies.

[Mrcrowley1967]

Originally Posted by john.piggott

I am an old time tech from the early 90s. I had the same problem with a new HP pavillion dv7 and vista. I figured out how to get to safe mode and start windows. I booted to safe with cmd prompt. I then ran chkdsk to verify the hard drive. I then ran the command to start windows. Which as every tech knows is "explorer" without the quotes. I then restarted the laptop normally and the problem was resolved. This beats the hell out of hiring Geeksquad to come over and charge you to reinstall your system and loose all of yoiur data, applications and config. I'm actually suspprized that a professionnal would recommend such a drastic solution. I guess that there are professionnals and then there are the rest of us techies.

I would love to do that but it locks in safe mode to wether it be safe mode with comand promp or safe mode with networking so-on. So i used a vista disk and did repair and got to command promp from there and did chcdsk and memory check and I did fix startup problems . It said the first time that it will fix start up problems so it rebooted and same thing sits there with a cursor and nothing else. So I ran the repair again and it says now there are no boot problems at all . So now I just dont know what to do I wish you could start vista from cammand promp like you did . I can not get it to work with explorer command from the cmd window that opens with disk repair settings any other suggestions
?

[Rich-M]

Download Ultimate Boot cd4 and make a bootable disk from iso file. You can boot to this and then there are hard disk repairs including checkdisk.
http://www.ubcd4win.com/downloads.htm
This will burn iso to bootable cd:
http://www.ghanja.be/freeware/burncdcc.htm

[Mrcrowley1967]

Originally Posted by Rich-M

Download Ultimate Boot cd4 and make a bootable disk from iso file. You can boot to this and then there are hard disk repairs including checkdisk.
http://www.ubcd4win.com/downloads.htm
This will burn iso to bootable cd:
http://www.ghanja.be/freeware/burncdcc.htm

Well I got into desktop and was able to back up files then I hp solution center poped up and said I had some critical updates that need to be done it did one critical update and then locked up on the solution center program update . What was wierd is before it had me do the updates it locked me out of everything after I got all the backed up data. I could not access anything it told me that" I had no admin rights to access it . So I restarted and boom I back with the black screen moving icon . I am thinking of recovering whole thing and do the HP updates then shut the solution center down or remove it . If I recall that was the problem last time I did a system recovery was as soon as I did the Hp update it would not boot and yes this would be the second time to 6 months.I might do the solution center program update first then the critical updates. Any ideas ?

[Rich-M]

Use UBCD4 as suggested and then don't do any HP updates. In fact why not uninstall everything HP from programs and features in Control panel (except printer driver if you have HP Printer) as none of it is necessary anyway. Then go into "Run,msconfig,ok,startup" and uncheck everything HP as well, hit apply and reboot.

[john.piggott]

Just type "explorer" in the CMD prompt and vista will start.