black screen once windows boots =(

hey guys, i downloaded and burned the recovery cd for 32 bit. i have an hp pavillion pc. i put the cd in the tray, and i've tried everything possible to repair my computer, however nothing works =/ i don't know what i should do. i can't even get to the screen to choose repair. once i turn it on, it loads and all. then the option saying press any key to start the cd/dvd message comes up. after that it says windows is loading files. then the green loading bar comes before vista starts. after that everything turns black and stays like that. what should i do? i chose the cd/dvd to start in the bios before my hdd. i've tried the options in f8 i've tried everything. still always end up with that black screen. any ideas?
 
Hi BB, welcome to NST.
Can you boot the CD in a working PC just to verify that it has burned OK, and is capable of booting.
If it won't get any further in both PCs, try burning again to a different format (-R +R -RW +RW DVD/CD), or at a lower burning speed, in case there's a slight problem with your optical burner.
If you're sure that the CD's OK, you could also try a format change (CD to DVD) in case the optical drive in the broken PC is having trouble reading (CD and DVD use different laser frequencies).
If all these fail, then it's likely that your HDD is suffering from a more severe problem than just a broken boot process.
In that case, get yourself a Live Linux distro, burn it, boot it in "don't change my system mode" (running the OS from the CD), and start rescuing your user data from the HDD to external media, in case you need to resort to a factory reset of your HP.
 
Last edited:
hey thanks a lot for the reply. i tried booting it on the laptop to make sure it worked, and it did. i'm about to try the linux thing now. i hope all goes well..is it posisble to transfer my hard drive data to another hard drive?
 
thanks a lot, i'm on ubuntu right now actually. is there a way to run system repair using ubuntu? can i download that thing using ubuntu?

Addendum:

alright, i went to staples today to buy an external hard drive, and i told them the problem. now that i think of it. i still have my files and everything. my plan was to copy it into the new one, wipe my comp and then put the new one with the files back in. but now that i think about it. isnt this more of a problem with the motherboard? i ran the smartcheck thingy and it said there was no errors with my hard drive. the guy at staples said he can run some diagnostic check for about 160 bucks. idk if it's worth it or if there's a better way to do this
 
Last edited:
Sorry, I wasn't too precise in my wording. I didn't mean to imply that your HDD was u/s, just that the problem was deeper in the OS on the HDD than just missing boot information.

If you've saved all your user data to your new ext HDD, you should be able to use the HP recovery partition to factory reset as in the link I gave before.
 
Well I'm assuming you've already tried the standard recovery options in the extended boot menu (F8), like "last known good" "system restore" "safe mode" etc if you resorted to downloading the recovery ISO.
Perhaps you'd better go back to square one, and describe what was your initial problem, that prompted you to try the recovery CD in the first place.
 
well the problem started by one night the computer just acting the way it is now. i thought something was wrong with the monitor at first because i kept seeing black. then i realised it had pictures, then went black after so i knew something's wrong with my desktop. i tried all the repair options, like the ones you listed above. none worked, just lead to the black screen. i tried the iso files, did the same thing, HOWEVER, one time it brought it to the vista looking background, i waited for about 30minutes and nothing showed up. so i closed it and turned off the computer. i tried it again and it kept leading to the black screen. so i knew the disk was working, i tried putting it in a laptop too to make sure, and it was working fine. i just don't know what to do at this point. i even called HP and they said i'd have to wipe the hard drive. and i really don't want to lose any of my stuff. i hope it's something that can be fixible without having to go through all of this =/
 
You shouldn't lose any of your stuff. Make sure you've dragged copies of all your data to your new ext HDD with Ubuntu, and that you can see all of the copies are good, then you can just drag them all back to your "special" folders (Music, Pictures, Videos, Documents etc) after you've recovered. Have a good look around (copy the whole C:\Users\* \* file structure and you'll even be able to reinstate your games scores etc if you want).
Don't rely on a disk image backup. You don't want to reinstate the whole disk image (including whatever's causing you grief), just make sure that everything of yours is safely copied in a nice readable format so you can be absolutely sure it's safe, then use the HP "factory reset" to give you back the system as it came out of the box. Then you'll have to uninstall any HP dross you don't want and reinstall your own apps, but your user data from all those apps can be safely copied back afterward to give you a nice clean fresh system, with everything of yours still safe and sound.
I take it that Ubuntu ran fine when booted from the CD, since you didn't say otherwise, so that would indicate that there's nothing wrong with your mobo, graphics, RAM, CDROM etc, so a factory reset should see you back to a healthy state.
It's a last resort option, but if you've tried everything else .............. ?
 
i guess that's true, i need to buy an ext hdd drive i think i am today. i am a little confused on what to copy though, can't i just copy every single thing? when i reset the computer and there's still copys of what i had, such as folders and all, would it ask to overrite them? i'm just really a noob to this as this never happaned to me before xD is there a way to run repair using ubuntu somehow? or maybe the last known config?
 
If you don't know exactly where all your user data is stored, then a drag and drop of everything on your HDD across to your ext HDD will guarantee that all of your data will saved for later retrieval, but it'll take a lot longer to do.
When you've got your system restored using the HP facility built in to your PC (see the link I gave you in an earlier post and find the section highlighted in yellow on this screenshot) and you've reinstalled your apps, you'll find folders created by the apps where they save data from your input, and you can just drag back from the equivalent folder on the ext HDD that you saved before the restore, any file you'd created in the past which won't obviously be there on the new fresh install.

I keep all of my user data in a dedicated partition (F:\ on all my systems) and I tell all of my installed apps to save data there, not in whatever file they would default to themselves. That way I know where everything of mine is, and since it's not on the same partition as the OS, I don't have to take special measures to save it if the OS needs to be restored. All my OSs share the data partition which can be accessed from all of them. It also makes it a doddle to keep it backed up and secure, as you can see ringed in magenta
 

Attachments

  • backup.JPG
    backup.JPG
    192.6 KB · Views: 8
well my computer only has 1 user and that would be me. i guess i'm kind of getting the idea. i didn't get the chance to get the ext hdd today so i am tomorrow. wish me luck thanks for the help, i'll reply back on this thread if anythign else goes wrong *knock on wood* =)
 
Just one user on my 4 systems too; me.
When I said all my user data, I didn't mean all my users' data, but all my personal data as opposed to that belonging to the OS or the apps.
 
sry for being such a pest hehe, but i don't clearly understand what i should copy to the ext hdd =( i really want to so that when my computer is looking like it just came out of the box, i can reinstall all my stuff back and it would look exactly like how it used to be, with all my stuff and everything there
 
You need to backup your music, pthots, videos, office files, and other files you couldn't replace or replace easily anyway. If you've always saved these files in the default location all of your files should be located in your user folder under sub-folders like documents, videos, music, etc. (ie c:\users\bill to backup user bill's files).
 
Back
Top