This guide shows one method of fixing Windows Vista if it stops at a black screen when it boots up.
Introduction
A common problem I’m seeing is Windows Vista hanging at a black blank screen when it boots up. This guide walks you through one simple attempt to fix Windows Vista and get it to boot up again.
This guide assumes Windows Vista was working fine previously.
Warning: Using this guide could cause a loss of data although it’s a very small chance. What do you have to lose? You can’t boot Vista anyway.
Last Known Good Configuration
I’m going to walk you through booting Windows Vista using its last known good configuration. Since Windows Vista reverts to a previous version of the registry, you might lose data that was worked with since your last successful boot.
- Make sure your computer is powered down.
- Turn your computer on and immediately start pressing F8 on your keyboard repeatedly until you see a black screen with white writing that gives you a list of boot options.
- Use the down arrow on your keyboard to select the Last Known Good Configuration (Advanced) option.
- Press Enter on your keyboard and cross your fingers.
Good Luck!
Still need help? Ask Your Computer Question Now.
Explore other guides about: All • Misc • Vista • Windows.
Hey that worked well. Boots up fine now. Thanks for the tip.
JT
If that doesn’t work you could also put the Windows Vista CD in and do a system fix.
thanks for the tip! i sorta freaked out when I found my PC messing up within a week of buying it. Works fine now though
….
Hey,
i keep getting a black screen with a flashing _ at the top left hand corner of the page. i pressed f8 rappedly but it just keep making this anoying beeping noise.
any help?
Help! Every time I start the computer, I keep getting this black screen on my windows vista laptop. I tried pressing the F8 button but the laptop just keeps making this beeping noise ! I have NO idea what is wrong with the laptop & now I’m going crazy ! Can someone please help me ?!?!?!
The beeping sound is your BIOS trying to tell you something (probably hardware) is wrong with your laptop.
What is the model number and make of your laptop?
What is the pattern of beeps (3 beeps pause 3 beeps, or one long been, so on)?
i have same problem with my laptop only that my documents apperars and if you close the my document only black screen and a mouse cursor no other keybord functions are avilable no window cmd or anything can you help me thnx
just put(explorer)in the documents search bar
Did you boot using the Last Known Good Configuration (Advanced) option Josh?
I had the same problem. Realized I had blank DVD rw in the drive. Ejected and all was well. must have stalled trying to boot to DVD.
Just thought I would share
John
Thanks bud. I came across this issue after I tried to do a disc check. works fine now. you Rock!
Tried a lot of fixes that didn’t work and then started to worry that I would have to reload Vista or that there was a hardware problem. I not only had the black screen while booting up but the system would also hang at times when using it. After trying the Last Known Good Configuration suggested in this article, all of the mentioned problems were solved.
black screen (vista) mouse cursor flicking on and on and you just cant do anything? nope!! if you end up in with limited usuage (where you can only use internet then you might be o.k) solution = internet explorer, file (alt F), open file,(then if you’re smart you can get something out of it)ehem- open file, now if u have a crack (yes pirate i’m talking to you) you can try and run it or download one that might work while you have the internet,if not find command prompt(cmd) type explorer.exe !! O.K O.K so that didn’t help? You sure? —again, OPEN FILE, browse, computer (left pane) on the search bar type menu, click accesories, look for RUN or command prompt, type explorer.exe, well the fastest way is = ctrl+alt delete,start task manager, new task, type, explorer.exe and voila.
the fastest way is = ctrl+alt delete,start task manager, new task, type, explorer.exe and voila.
NOW EVERY TIME you start your computer when you’re mouse is flicking after the loading and all with the black screen OR WITH ANY OTHER MESSAGES, you ctrl+alt delete,start task manager, new task, type, explorer.exe and voila—works every time and no time limit.
the fastest way is = ctrl+alt delete,start task manager, new task, type, explorer.exe and voila.
I had this problem and found out that the screen is black because windows thinks there is a projector or other monitor attached, just plug in the projector and your desktop is there!
Change the settings back to a single momitor and you may be fine.
good luck, vista is shit!
Hi – thanks so much – you are a life saver – I was almost on the point of reinstalling Vista because nothing else worked and found your post
Solution here,,,
Windows Vista DVD . It works!! Choose the repair option and Start Up fix.
I have just done the Start Up fix. It’s working fine.
If you don’t have original Vista DVD. You can download the recovery and boot CD image here. Its a ISO file.It has 120 MB
http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/windows-vista-recovery-disc-download/
I was getting the black screen at start up before the login screen. I followed the F8
‘last good config’ instruction and it booted fine.
Thank you.
Thanks partner! My cat walked on the keyboard during a windows update and froze the PC. Your fix worked though.
it doesn’t work !
I have tried all the above, and still get the black screen after the boot up screen runs. This is a Gateway Laptop and has been running without any problems since last Christmas. Any Suggestions. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Lee
go in safe mode and go start – run -cmd-chkdsk /f try it if possible take backup in safe mode u can do it
Does this also work with !!0xc0190036!! or any other problems like this?
It’s still not working for me. The black screen shows after I have logged on. The mouse is there, but nothing else is. Ctrl Alt Dlt would not show up either. It’s like this with all the Safe Modes too. I’ve also tried resetting the bios defaults. I will try booting from the Vista CD when I find it…
This happened after I ended windows explorer. I’ve done it a million times in XP, and after I restart, everyhting’s fine. But now with Vista… argg….
Really really weird because I clicked F8 previously and it just like stayed hanging at the main screen… but now it worked, and I booted properly thanks so much dude!!
:):):) I seriously love you!!
Okay, If you try this and it doesn’t work, probably the problem is not with your windows vista OS at all. If your computer Laptop or PC, has a NVIDIA graphic card, it is most likely that your VC is the problem. You see many NVIDIA cards even though they say they are compatible with Vista they aren’t, so when your video card NVIDIA needs to communicate with the OS (like for controlling the fans etc.) your OS does not respond to you VC requests. The best thing to do is to change your NVIDIA card for a newer one or one of a different brand. I fix computer for a living and that is how I fix the windows black screen of Death!!!! For those of you who uses Dell or HP waranty plans you’ll see that what they do is change your video card to resolve this issue or your motherboard if you have a Laptop. If it helps you please leave me a nice comment in my Website macrofix.net
I don’t think switching brands would helpp.
the 2 main manufacutures of video cards are ATI and Nvidia. The rest are just adding special cooling or bundled software.
You have t check and see if your nvidia card model works with vista (they do have a requirement of pixel shader 2.0 minimum requirement and a 128mb video card) so all the old Geforce (Geforce 5 series and before that) will not work.
Hi,
I’ve this problem!
I’ve black screen after auto-login in vista business. I’ve Fujitsu Siemens PC with the original license and i’ve GeForce 8700GT Video Card.
When i arrived to black screen i’ve the mouse pointer but i can’t make nothing (ex. CTRL+ALT+DEL, WIN+R, WIN+E, CTRL+ALT+ESC). I’ve attend 10 minutes but the screen remaining black.
I’ve disabled “restore point” and so..when i click (in F8 mode) the voice “LAST CONFIGURATION … ” the black screen is always with me
help me please, i’m very desperate!!
PS I’ve tried to restore vista and i’ve make CHKSDK, i haven’t other idea.
Hi, I have a same problem above which is the black screen not booting up. My problem started when I inserted the Windows Vista disc in to upgrade. After the completion step, it turned all black. I have to manually turn off. After that I got black screen problem. Any suggestion will help? I want to get out of this situation.
Thanks in advance.
Hi, try to turn S.M.A.R.T to OFF (Disabled) in BIOS. Since last “blackout” – Nothing could bring vista to complete boot up.
Now vista boots up w/o problem. No doubt vista checks this feature accessibility over BIOS at boot up, in order to verify “health” of the hard disk to proceed boot up with reliable data access.
hi everyone,
help! i’ve been reading about vista blank screen with interest. unfortunately, nothing seems to work in my case. i have tried last good configuration, restore, repair, either with the built-in recovery (by pressing F8) or by a bootable recovery disk. any other idea?
mine is a toshiba laptop on vista 32bit home premium.
regards,
pk
Hey There.
This is a nice way to do it but I’ve tried everything..
f8, f11 , ESC and still doesnt work…
Everytime I try to do anything it just stays in the black screen with the white pointer..
I tried this Last Good Configuration and it just stays in there or sometimes it “restarts”
Sometimes this msg pops up
“windows has detected an error during start up”
I select
Fix ( recommended ) and it just reboots and it doesnt do anything
Please help me I am 16 and I kinda dont know what to do right now..
I found that sometimes when the hard disk is under stress… like sudden laptop shutdown or physically under vibration, that hard disk can get corrupt and the system won’t boot. I also found that sometimes all it takes is a bit of patience… strange huh.. here is the exact story how I successfully booted up Vista that wouldn’t boot.. just with a bit of patience, no last good config, no startup CDROM. http://annoyances-resolved.blogspot.com/2009/09/laptop-wont-boot-and-shows-blank-screen.html
Worked like a charm!!
ive been trying but i cant acess the last good known configuration i press F8 but what appears is the boot devices so really dunno what to do can you explain better how to access the last good known configuration so i can try this because i have the problem that it goes all black after loading the windows just before login menu but it works just fine in safe mode
the fastest way is = ctrl+alt delete,start task manager, new task, type, explorer.exe and voila.
this works…
Jon, i tried your method and it worked a treat until i shut down my laptop and booted it up the next day only to find the “black screen” was back, is there any way of making the change permenant?
Thanks
DUDE HOLY CRAP! MAN IVE BEEN SEARCHING HOW TO FIX THIS FOR HOURS! i cant thank you enough. my parents were gonna kill me!
tried that and it didn’t work still have a black screen with a white pointer. what do i do nothing seems to work. please help and my computer came with vista on it so i have no cd.
I’ve got the same problem – Hangs before login screen at a blank screen with the cursor. I’ve tried everywhere and it seems this issue hasn’t been resolved yet. My PC isn’t under warrentee any more so contacting Dell is out of the question. Everything I’ve seen here does nothing to help, but I can’t find the Vista disc so I haven’t tried that. I’m gonna try mounting the .iso onto a blank disc then try that.
Dear Brent Trahan,
Thank you very!
You saved several hours (maybe days) of my life.
Have a good one!
im guessig most people dont realise that there could b numerous reasons to why the blank screen hangs for a prolonged period of time.
more than likely if last known configuration or a format doesnt reslove the problem its a hardware issue
Guys be more precise when does the black screen occur? before or after boot up? before or after the vista logo and start up sound? before or after logging in? all of these things totally call for different fixes! If we don’t know exactly the fix recommended will have no effect!
I have the black screen before it even boots up. No cursor, No bios, no nothing. Tried pressing the F8 buttons but nothing. Before this black out, had a ‘OC error” last week. I’ve never overclocked my pc. I replaced my mobo battery and it hasn’t booted since. My dvd drive blinks like it’s hung up or something. I tried my old ATI VC and my old monitor, but still have the black screen. I built my pc in 2005 with xp. I upgraded with a full install of vista. It’s been working fine for 6 months. Any recommendations would help at this time.
Rich in Mesa,AZ
It won’t work it won’t even load to the log in screen it just sits there blank and before that it beeps and the F8 thing doesn’t work cause you can’t see it any help?
i have acer aspire 4925 with vista home prmium… after acer logo , black screen is shown…. startup repair doesnt work… how can i do to fixed this problems???
Minw is hanging on a black screen right after I log into my user account. It will show the mouse but that’s all. I figured out before I read all the posts that my task manager works and if I End Tasked exploer.exe that was running during the boot and then run a new one from task manager my desktop appears. I’ve got other problems too but this is my main one right now. I tried booting with the ISO file and it booted to the disc ok and I tried the repair. It basically said I had a messed up start up and if I wanted it to repair it. I cicked ok and it did some quick stuff and rebooted. Same problem still after I logged in. This is on an Acer Aspire 5570Z but I doubt make and model really matters. Any help would be great. Thanks.
The typing in atl+clt+del and going to da start task manger thing worked jon, thanx!
Dakiddddd & Jon, the ctrl+alt delete,start task manager, new task, type, explorer.exe and voila, worked liked a champ. Thanx.
thanxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx buddy……………….u saved my life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
YOU SAVED MY LIFE BROTHER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Use http://www.ccleaner.com/
to clean your registery
Worked for me.
That might be a little difficult if your computer doesn’t boot.
from safe mode
ahh
i sigm in at when i start up my computer but then the screnn goes black and the “my documents” page opens. i can move my cursor and click and open things. but my wallpaper doesnt show up and neither does the shortcuts. only black screen and “documents”.
PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
Same problem – get the “windows failed to boot” select screen and it goes to black screen the mouse cursor appears works for a while then freezes. Same in safemode except it gets through loading drivers to crc check then goes to black screen and then the cursor freezes. Friend brought me this PC his kid had been playing something then all these error windows popped up and the kid, in a panic, pulled the plug, and it never booted after that. Thing is, the mate has a lot of business files and software on the damn machine or I’d just reformat. And it’s a Dell Dimension E520 desktop. Seems to be a common enough Vista stuff-up from the look of these comments, sure there has to be a solution.
I’ve tried all the tricks to suspend loading possibly dodgy drivers, and the Dell recovery CD gets video going in graphics mode so it’s something in the native Vista installation that’s gotten corrupted, but what and how to get at it is a bit of a mystery…
HALLELUJAH! i did the f8 trick and it didnt work at first.. went through all of the tips above and just as i had lost hope and went back to try it again, my start up login screen appeared!!!! thx guys..
Does not work for me.when I press f8(rapidly) but nothing happens. And before it would beap but since I did not know the meaning of it , I would just restart my CPU. But now no sounds is coming out but it is stuck at the black screen(normaly boot goes like this: Hp logo , black screen with _ at top left ( stuck here) , load screen and then log in page.)
also pressing alt+ctl+del would just restart the CPU….. Please someone
help.
Sorry I am using my itouch so it’s hard to type…
I have the same problem. After bootup(which can take a considarable time, and dont come to tell me i have a crappy comp: quad procc, ddr3 ram, 500 GB ultrafast HDD…), after the booting logo, it hangs up in a black screen with cursor. I do have a backup thumbdrive in my comp and vista ultimate 32-bit. Safe mode, last know config, nuffin works.
Tomorrow, when everything goes fine, i should get the vista disk and win 7 disk, so when everything goes fine, i can do the backup and put win 7 on it. If not, a full format and win 7…
along all my music and pictures and games…
DAMNATION AND ETERNAL BURNING ON THE STAKE FOR VISTA!!!
I have had the problem for a week now and when I try to boot into vista it stops at the bar moving left and right and looks like it will never load. My brother told me that AVG might be the problem but sdo not know how to get into windows to uninstall it.
Chris, mine is doing the same thing. It is hung up with the green bar moving left to right continuously. It ran for over 12 hours until I stopped it to try the F8 last good configuration. It didn’t work.
Does anyone know how to fix this? The only thing that happened before the hang up was that the power went out before I could dig the plug out of my backpack. Next time I booted up, it hung up at the screen with the green bar moving left to right with the words “Microsoft Corporation” on the bottom.
Please help…I really need to get this thing going again.
My computer is Only 3 months old. It’s a gateway laptop. I went away for the night. I came home & my laptop started up normally. When it got to the login, & I clicked my name. It froze. I let it stay there for a min or two. Then finally just shut it off. I rebooted it. & Then a black screen with the mouse cursor came on. I tried pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del. Nothing happened. I then restarted the computer, In safe mode. The same thing happened again. So I rebooted it once more, Pressing F-8. Happened again. This is my work computer. It has all my school things on it. It a 350 Gb. I put in my gateway recovery disk, & Tried the (advanced) answer. It took awhile. Now it’s saying Restore Partition. I need as much info as possible if this dosn’t work. Please?
You may E-Mail me on my public one. Nataliexeclipse@Yahoo.com
Thanks!!!
Tried system restore on three different dates…the earliest date seemed to work for me…
HELP…i tryed the f8 and it still is black….i dont know what else to do i have a acer with vista….anyone know what else to try …..
My fixed worked………
Symptoms:
- Vista boots ut fine in safe mode. In normal mode, I can hear the boot up sounds and HDD light indicates it is processing but nothing on the laptop screen, all is black screen not even a cursor and desktop is not seen anywhere.
Fix I did:
1. Start Safe Mode (backup all important files to HDD as I was planning on re-installing if system restore did not work).
2. Perform System Restore (I had windows update 2 night ago and my system restore only had one restore point to choose)
3. PC boot in normal mode, I can see windows logo and my desktop screen.. yohoo.. however, after about 1 minute windows screen goes blank and I am back to my blank screen problem again.
4. I connect s-video cable from laptop to my TV and I can see my desktop on the TV screen. So I press ‘Fn’ ‘f4′ (HP laptop) to toggle between the diffrent display modes and finally I can see the desktop on my laptop screen.
5. Did a re-boot and after booting up, my PC is back to normal no black screen.
A thing to note is that I had not used the other display modes before like output to s-video so very strange how my pc was kinda stuck in this mode. The fix is just to do step #4, but I just describe the whole process here in case someone has exactly the same problem.
Hope this helps
I have a problem with my laptop, everytime i play game like warcraft i got black skrin. My laptop model is aser aspire 4925. Need some help please
Ok I am having the same EXACT problem because mines wont show…..BUT have you ever waited atleast 2 days and then try again.Pobably you should let it rest a lil before you turn it back on heres some was that ive learned how to do even though mines still black for about 2 weeks now -_-
1)use a hair dryer and heat up the laptop,then trying to boot it
2)the f8 thing
3)the f12 thing lol
4)you could just keep pressing the start button and get lucky
5)get a boot disk or a cd that you got with yo laptop
Might just be so much memory loss but try these and see what works theres lots of probls like LCD failure and crap but its better if you dont spend money and tr y solutions first.
NEVER ASK VISTA TO REPAIR IT FOR $200-400 because it might not work after wards lol ask them if you van get it repaired for free if you got hp laptop and your warranty is only a year passed
How long do u need to keep pressing F8 ?
Help plz cuz need my schoolproject.
Press F8 on your keyboard repeatedly until you see a black screen with white writing that gives you a list of boot options.
Thanks for the tip. It seems to work for me so far. Fingers crossed.
If I turn on my computer I get the Dell screen with the F2 and F12 on it. After that it goes to a black screen with the white cursor in the upper left hand corner. I am using the analog video cable at the moment. My video card went out about 6 months ago. I think I have a hardware problem. How do I tell what the problem is, if it is hardware? The desktop is 2 years old. Dell wanted me to reset everything to factory settings before I could send it back to them. I don’t want to lose some programs that I don’t have disks for. Any suggestions?