Windows 7 blank screen before login screen

Hi Peter Lairo,

Did you try system restore? What was the outcome?

Method 1: If you haven’t tried LKGC, give this a shot

Boot the computer in Last Known Good Configuration (LKGC). To do this, follow the steps below**:**

Access the Advanced boot options menu by turning on your computer and pressing the F8 key continuously before Windows starts. On the advanced boot options menu select Last Known Good Configuration*Safe Mode*

Advanced startup options (including safe mode)

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Advanced-startup-options-including-safe-mode 

Method 2: Access system recovery command prompt and then run check disk; please see the steps mentioned in the link below

What are the System Recovery Options?

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/What-are-the-system-recovery-options-in-Windows-7

a)       Run Check disk to fix any bad sectors on the hard drive.

b)       At the command prompt type chkdsk /f and then press enter.

c)       Now, type in chkdsk /rand then press enter.

Note: CHKDSK would try to recover bad sectors on the hard disk, during this process there are chances of DATA loss from that particular sector.

You may refer the steps outlined in the article below which addresses similar issue on Windows Vista

When you start a Windows Vista-based computer, the system may stop responding (hang) at a black screen

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946532

Rebooting after the two chkdsk scans (/f and /r) still yields the same blank screen.

BTW: The instructions given under "Using the Upgrade installation option" (after following the link you gave) start with:

To install Windows 7 using the Upgrade option

1. Turn on your computer so that Windows starts normally. (To perform an upgrade, you can't start, or boot, your computer from the Windows 7 installation media.)

Since I cannot boot into the Windows on my hard drive, this method doesn't work for me.

Continuing from my report from yesterday:

• Stage 4: one bad sector in an old backup file
• Stage 5: 16 kb in bad sectors, 843363 kb in use by the system, and "Failed to transfer logged messages to the event log with status 50."

Thank you for any further assistance.

If I enter "chkdsk d: /f" (with the "d:" parameter) (under F8 - Repair Your Computer - login to my user account that is type=administrator), it does perform a scan. The only error-like results were:

• 8 kb in bad sectors
• 843363 kb in use by the system
• "Failed to transfer logged messages to the event log with status 50."

Taking the risk and also running "chkdsk d: /r" yields: "Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. Chkdsk may run if this volume is dismounted first. ALL OPENED HANDLES TO THIS VOLUME WOULD THEN BE INVALID. Would you like to force a dismount on this volume? (Y/N)".

Pressing "Y" yielded: "CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 5)...".

After all 5 stages had completed:

• Stage 1: 0 bad file records, 0 EA record processed
• Stage 2: 0 unindexed files
• Stage 3: security descriptors and Usn Journal processed (no errors noted)
• Stage 4: (still running... I'll let you know tomorrow...)

BTW: Regarding your suggestion to look at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946532: That article specifically refers to Vista (I'm using Windows 7), and it states: "This problem was corrected in Windows Vista Service Pack 1". So it seems that the problem should no longer exist in my Windows 7. Or is my interpretation wrong?

Ajay: Thanks for the suggestions. Here are my results:

System Restore yields: "No restore points have been created on your computer's system drive." This is odd because I hadn't turned off System Restore, and I'm pretty sure I have software installed that auto-creates restore points.

Last Known Good Configuration (LKGC) yields: "Starting Windows" logo, then a blank screen with responsive mouse cursor. I also tried Safe Mode, Enable low-resolution video (640×480), and Disable Driver Signature Enforcement - all with the same result: a blank screen (after the Windows logo and before the login screen). Should I try any of the other options under F8?

I just tried System Recovery Options again, but this time via the F8 - Repair Your Computer during boot. Interestingly, the top of the dialog says "Operating system: Windows 7 on (D:) Local Disk". It says drive "D" but my Windows is on drive C. I don't have a D drive or partition. Could that be the cause?

Trying all the System Recovery Options (via F8 - Repair Your Computer - login to my user account that is type=administrator), I get:

• Startup Repair: "Startup Repair could not detect a problem"
• System Restore: "No restore points have been created on your computer's system drive."
• System Image Recovery: "Windows cannot find a system image on this computer" (I don't recall ever creating one anyhow)
• Windows Memory Diagnostic: I watched the status while it was running, and it reported "No problems have been detected yet". I cannot log in to see the final test results. My RAM is fairly new, so I don't think it's causing the problem anyhow.
• Command Prompt -> Check Disk: chkdsk /f yields: "The type of the file system is NTFS. Cannot lock current drive. Windows cannot run disk checking on this volume because it is write protected."
• Command Prompt -> Check Disk: chkdsk /r yields: I didn't try this because chkdsk /f yielded the above error message, and I didn't want to risk data-loss.

Do you have an explanation why F8 - Repair Your Computer - System Recovery Options is calling my Windows drive drive-D instead of drive-C?

Do you have a suggestion how to get chkdsk /f to work?

Do you have another solution I could try?