Comments on: After Windows XP boot screen the screen becomes totally black and only the cursor is visible.

By: Abdul

Abdul — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 13:54:06 +0000

I own Toshiba Qosmio F45- AV410 with Vista, recently it hanged up during streaming music player. I switched it off and it gives repair windows prompt. I tried to repair it, but windows loading bar fills up and tries to start window, but after some time blank screen appears and than cursor shows up on screen, hard disk stops working after a while. I have tried following things.
1. Boot it with recovering CD’s , same thing happens.
2. Tried to run in safe mode it crashes during start.
3. I have removed memory and left it for 30 mins, and put it back, no change in situation.
4. I have removed hard disk and connected same thing happens.

What could be the problem, please guide me
Abdul

By: Jack

Jack — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 00:30:22 +0000

I got the same problem. The problem is during a repair install windows made my C drive becomes G drive. All registry changed reference to G. I did offline registry edit to make windows location from G:\windows to C:\windows but did not change all other references so the boot find windows installation but not able to load desktop, favorites, etc…and only get a mouse pointer with blank screen…. I will use offline registry edit to change all references from G: to C: so windows can find everything else…

By: Laptop Freak

Laptop Freak — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 06:12:57 +0000

You do not have to buy a new hard drive right now. Most likely your operating system is corrupted and you can get the laptop back to work after you re-image the drive. It is very easy to do if you still have an original Toshiba restore DVD disk. In most cases you get a restore DVD or CDs when you buy a laptop.
To re-image the drive you have to do next:
1. Turn on the laptop and insert the recovery DVD disk into the DVD drive.
2. Restart the laptop and press on F12 to access the menu of boot devices. Chose to boot from CD/DVD drive. After that the laptop will boot from the recovery DVD drive and you have to follow the instructions.
NOTE: when you run a restore DVD everything will be erased from the hard drive and it would be taken back to original factory defaults, it would be the way when you bought the laptop.
If you have any important data on the hard drive – pictures, documents, music, etc. you must back it up before you re-image the drive. The easiest way to transfer your data from a laptop hard drive is to use an external USB enclosure for laptop hard drives. You can buy this enclosure in any computer shop for $20-$30. Install the hard drive inside the enclosure and connect it to a working computer using USB cable. Transfer all important data.

By: Fred Chen

Fred Chen — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 05:47:21 +0000

I tried the Last Known Good configuration option, and it still shows a blank screen. I also tried to start it in Safe Mode. It shows a screen with the text “safe mode” at the right and left bottom corners and text describing the version of my windows at the top of the screen, and it just hangs there.

I guess my next step is to buy a new hard drive and see if it works. Is there anything I need to be aware of before I replace the hard drive?