computer screen goes black after windows logo

[Forest]

hi when i try boot into my computer it all works fine, as soon as it gets to the windows logo and finished loading the bar it goes black, behind the blackness should be my password log in screen. ive tried restarting bios, no help. ive tried booting in safe mode gets stuck on the codeing and freezes there and wont continue ive tried chaining the vga and ive tried last known config which didnt work. ive tried all of F8 options and nothing ....... i got some major work needed for friday, so i need a fix ( should of backed up hard drive)

Forest

[peterb]

Which version of Windows?

What was the last thing you did before it stopped working?

Have there been any other odd sysmptoms in the last few days/weeks before this happened?

Do you have any A V software installed - is it up to date?

If you need to access the hard drive urgently, either get a mate with a computer and install your drive in there as a secondary drive (if its IDE) or get a USB caddy for the drive (IDE or SATA depnding on the disk interface) and again plug it into a mate's computer and get the data off it that way. That is less invasive of your mate's machine.

In either event, make sure yoir mate has an uptodate virus checker, and scan the drive - completely - before accessing any data or executing any other programs.

An alternative would be to boot the machine with a Linux live CD and access the data on your hard drive that way.

If you order a caddy from Scan tonight, with express delivery, it should arrive Friday morning. (Although carrigae will be almost as much as the caddy)

If you have a mate with a fast internet connection, you could download a live CD (I like Knoppix - fwiw - but given the urgency, now is NOT the time to debate the relative merits of live distros) overnight and burn it to CD/DVD ready for use tomorrow.

[merple]

I had this problem last week.
You didn't happen to put a new graphics card into a mobo that has onboard graphics and a crappy bios did you?

[Gunbuster]

Is it a black screen or does the monitor loose connection? ie does it go into standby after a few seconds? If it's the latter it could be trying to display an incorrect resolution or it might be knackered and can only just manage VGA resolutions.

[Forest]

ok its not the screen definatly and i no i havent put a new gpu in recently. im using windows medica center 2003. before the problem i was trying to log on ! i couldnt log on, beacuse the computer just froze on my screensaver, so i restarted the computer and it started to freeze after the logo and the mointer turned black.

i did change hard drives and it started, so ive limited down the options to a virus, or OS has died. i did manage to get onto safe mode one time when i couldnt log on, (before it got stuck on the black screen) i found my A V was for some reason disabled, when i clicked on it it came up with a message saying error, so having a virus is a huge posibilty

is it possible to wipe a hard drive beafore logging into the computer ? i dnt really want to buy a new one ..

(Edited)

Forest

[peterb]

Quick tip on posting...

Use punctuation and reasonable sentence construction.

Avoid text speak.

The ellipsis (...) is no substitute for the enter button - and too many smilies in inappropriate places tend to distract from the subject!

Make it easy for the people who want to help you

Right - back on topic. My next thought was that it could be a virus, which was why I asked you about AV protection and stressed that before you connect the disk to any machine, it should be virus checked.

It is possible to scan a disk - one of the better ways is to boot the machine from a Linux live CD and either download one of the free ones (F-prot is one) and run that. Of course the machine will have to remain powered up the whole time because the OS is being run from the CD.

If you want to wipe the hard drive (that is - completely over write whatever data is on it) then you can do that - again with a live CD, or just do a fresh install of Windows from your Windows install CD. Again you are running a system off a CD, and doing all disk operations that way, and it is unlikely that any executeable code will survive that process.

Good luck!

[Forest]

thank you for the english lesson i will stop using text language.

right, i will give that ago and post results. it may take some time, busy next couple of days. thank you. keep you posted.

Forest

[Forest]

Peterb i have located the linux live you taked about Linux Live for CD & USB

but im confused with what to download onto my empty disk ..

and what are "kernel with aufs and squashfs modules"

do i just install the scripts ? or are the "kernels" needed on the CD to.

thanks

Forest

[peterb]

Ah - no - you have downloaded some scripts that are usefuul on an already running linux system!

You need a live distribution

KNOPPIX Linux Live CD is one (the developer is German, but switch to the English flag and all becomes clear. You should go to the download page and select a mirror to download from - there aren't any in the UK, but that doesn't matter - they all contain the same files. For your purposes, you probably only need the CD version.

Other options are Ubuntu and many others, but it is the Live CD/DVD version you need.

Download it - the file will end in a .iso extension, and then burn it to a CD or DVD - just double clicking the file in Windows should bring up the burning software.

Once you have burned the CD, you then set the bios on your computer to boot from the CD - and then restart it with teh CD in the CDROM drive. You will then have a working computer system that isn't using the hard drive for its operation. You use this system to transfer the files from your hard drive to wherever.

Post back when you have a CD - or if you have a any problems obtaining it.

[Forest]

hey what one do i choose ?

12/14/2006 12:00AM 14 DVD
01/05/2007 12:00AM 39,248 KNOPPIX-CHANGELOG.txt
03/16/2005 12:00AM 728,958,976 KNOPPIX_V3.8-2005-02-28-CeBIT_Edition.iso
12/30/2006 12:00AM 731,594,752 KNOPPIX_V5.1.0CD-2006-12-30-EN.iso
12/30/2006 12:00AM 69 KNOPPIX_V5.1.0CD-2006-12-30-EN.iso.md5
12/30/2006 12:00AM 305 KNOPPIX_V5.1.0CD-2006-12-30-EN.iso.md5.asc
12/30/2006 12:00AM 77 KNOPPIX_V5.1.0CD-2006-12-30-EN.iso.sha1
12/30/2006 12:00AM 313 KNOPPIX_V5.1.0CD-2006-12-30-EN.iso.sha1.asc
01/04/2007 12:00AM 730,177,536 KNOPPIX_V5.1.1CD-2007-01-04-EN.iso
01/04/2007 12:00AM 69 KNOPPIX_V5.1.1CD-2007-01-04-EN.iso.md5
01/05/2007 12:00AM 305 KNOPPIX_V5.1.1CD-2007-01-04-EN.iso.md5.asc
01/04/2007 12:00AM 77 KNOPPIX_V5.1.1CD-2007-01-04-EN.iso.sha1
01/05/2007 12:00AM 313 KNOPPIX_V5.1.1CD-2007-01-04-EN.iso.sha1.asc
08/18/2005 12:00AM 267 README
08/28/2005 12:00AM Directory contrib
06/08/2006 12:00AM Directory docs
06/02/2006 12:00AM 9,792 knoppix-cheatcodes.txt
08/28/2005 12:00AM Directory knoppix-cover
08/28/2005 12:00AM Directory knoppix-customize
08/28/2005 12:00AM Directory knoppix-vortrag-als2000
12/30/2006 12:00AM Directory md5-old
01/05/2007 12:00AM 126,368 packages.txt
06/02/2006 12:00AM Directory qemu-0.8.1
06/02/2006 12:00AM 756 qemu-0.8.1-windows-README.txt

[Splash]

ive tried booting in safe mode gets stuck on the codeing and freezes there and wont continue

If you do that what is the very last thing (ie at the bottom) that shows on the loading screen? I've seen this problem in the past with borked graphics drivers and it can take a LONG time to pass this point (I've seen it take 30 mins or more, you just have to stick with it). Load into Safe Mode (as I say, it'll take a while potentially) and the try a system restore.

[peterb]

hey what one do i choose ?

01/04/2007 12:00AM 730,177,536 KNOPPIX_V5.1.1CD-2007-01-04-EN.iso
01/04/2007 12:00AM 69 KNOPPIX_V5.1.1CD-2007-01-04-EN.iso.md5

01/04/2007 12:00AM 730,177,536 KNOPPIX_V5.1.1CD-2007-01-04-EN.iso

The second file is an md5 checksum that you can use to verify that the file has been downloaded correctly - I wouldn't normally say this - but don't bother with it - just download the first and burn it to CD.


Try Splash's sufggestion first though!

[Forest]

ive just tired your disk idea, no good same problem as before just goes black , it boots up the disk no problem. what does this mean ? virus ?

splash your idea was to boot into safe mode right ? and just wait for it load up ?

beacuse when i boot into safe mode it gets stuck on:

windows/system32/drivers/mup.sys

shall i just leave it for a while ?

Forest

[Splash]

Yes - the next driver to be loaded will be either AGP440 or the ACPI driver. I've seen this a few times and it's always been fixed by leaving the machine until safe mode loads fully, then running system restore. It takes ages, but patience is a virtue.

[Forest]

lol ok i will wait just something to keep you thinking.

how old is the p5p 800 (asus) ?

and is it better than packard's basic motherboard
(not sure what its called)

thanks

Forest

[peterb]

ive just tired your disk idea, no good same problem as before just goes black , it boots up the disk no problem. what does this mean ? virus ?

splash your idea was to boot into safe mode right ? and just wait for it load up ?

beacuse when i boot into safe mode it gets stuck on:

windows/system32/drivers/mup.sys

shall i just leave it for a while ?

Forest

You did enter the bios and set it to boot off the CD? It is unlikely that there is a virus on the CD - and you are not accessing the hard drive at that stage - and not executing any code from it.