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  1. #1
    Nidhogg
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    Lakshmi

    Black Screen of Death!

    When windows starts up it goes to the loading screen just fine:
    http://n4dheem.files.wordpress.com/2...go-loading.gif
    But instead of going to my desktop, I get a black screen with a visible mouse cursor that you can move around but that's all you can do:
    http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/4508/29527540.jpg
    I've tried safe mode, last known configuration, and the command prompt but all I get is the black screen. When I tried to boot from my recovery CD, I get the BSOD too. My files are all intact, but it looks like explorer is just unresponsive or crashes. Did a google search and it's a fairly common problem right now on XP, Vista, and even Windows 7.

  2. #2
    Nidhogg
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    Anybody?

  3. #3
    You think this is the real Dmitry?
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    Ifrit

    Can you start task manager (use ctrl+shift+esc) and then use the run command to start explorer.exe?

  4. #4
    Nidhogg
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    Nope, everything is unresponsive when I get to the black screen. All I can do move the mouse cursor around.

  5. #5
    Nidhogg
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    why is it booting to xp then say vista rc1 evaluation build?

    did you install a vista beta onto the same partition as xp?

  6. #6
    Nidhogg
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    Sorry, ignore the Vista information on the bottom corner of the screen. That was the best matching pic I could find. I'm only using xp home edition.
    After some more searching, it seems like explorer.exe is freezing up. Could probably fix in safe mode, but I can't even get to that.

  7. #7
    listen!
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    Sylph

    Explorer not working should not prevent you from doing anything else. Windows will run perfectly fine without it, as long as you don't mind using the command prompt for anything you'd normally use it for, alt tab for switching windows, and win+r to run programs, etc.

  8. #8
    Campaign
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    Sylph

    If you have a windows xp disk, boot from the disk and then choose, um,

    chkdsk

    Can't think of the sequence for xp's repair options, haven't used it in a while.

    However, the disk should give you both a chkdisk option and a chkdsk -r (repair) option. You want to repair.

    If you don't have a disk, you can try finding someone who can give you a copy of the folder that holds the windows explorer files, and can try to over-write them manually. If you have a slave or alternate comp to view your hard drive from. The repair option from the windows xp disk is honestly the best solution.

    edit: If you are able to run repair, don't be afraid if it gets to like 80% and then falls back to 50% during the process, or if it happens multiple times. Completely normal.

  9. #9
    Nidhogg
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    just make a backup of your hard drive and reinstall windows, then copy all your files back. Will be faster and less stressful than anything else you're going to try.

  10. #10
    Nidhogg
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    Quote Originally Posted by xopher View Post
    just make a backup of your hard drive and reinstall windows, then copy all your files back. Will be faster and less stressful than anything else you're going to try.
    That's what I wound up doing. But found out there's an issue with a recent windows update that causes it.

  11. #11
    Nidhogg
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    Hopefully you moved on to Windows 7.

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