Black Screen w/ Blinking Cursor

[Brettw0409]

So, today I started my computer up normally and I was doing my normal activities for about 5 mins before my computer automatically shut down and restarted. After the Blue HP flash screen, it goes to a black screen with a blinking cursor in the top left-hand corner. If I hit Ctrl+Alt+Del it just goes back through the splash and to the black screen again.

The only options on the splash screen that works are boot menu, diagnostics, and setup. For some reason, hitting F11 for system recovery doesn't do anything and it will just proceed to the black screen. Another peculiar thing to note is that merely tapping the power button will make it shutdown, I don't need to hold it.

As far as why this happens, the only reasonable explanation would be that I had a virus. Malwarebytes kept telling me "svchost.exe" was up to suspicious activity and I did a full system scan yesterday, it found and supposedly removed the svchost.exe and I did a restart. After restarting, it came to a black screen and proceeded to do some kind of disk check or something. It was fine after that, but I shut it down last night and this morning the issue arose.

I'm not really good with computers, I went into BIOS and tried to restore defaults. As far as I can tell it acknowledges the hard drive. The diagnostics check finished without finding any issues. I removed all USB devices and it still just goes to the black screen.

I'm running Windows 7 64-bit. I do not have any recovery disks.

If anyone has any knowledge or advice they can share, it would be deeply appreciated.

[DavidPK]

Hi,

If you don't already have one, use another PC to create a Windows 7 Rescue CD.  Download the relevant ISO from the links below.

Windows 7 64bit

You should use an application such as ImgBurn to burn the ISO to a CD - a guide on using ImgBurn to write an ISO to a disc is Here.  Once created, or if you already have this, insert the CD into the notebook and restart to boot from it.  Select the Repair option.

Select the 'Repair your Computer' option and follow Option 2 in the guide on the link below to run Start-up Repair – you may need to run this 2 or 3 times.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/668-system-recovery-options.html

If the above fails to help, make a note of any error messages you may get during the procedure and include them with your next post.

Regards,

DP-K

[Brettw0409]

Hi, thanks for your reply!

Okay, well, I burned a repair disk and was able to get to the system recovery options. From there, I tried Startup repair, which would finish pretty instantaneously and tell me that no problems were detected and if I recently attached a device, to remove it and restart. All that is attached are the factory mouse/keyboard.

I tried multiple system restore points and they all failed. There were 5 total that it would allow me to choose from, none of which worked and all resulted in the error: (0x800700b7)

[DavidPK · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Boot from the Rescue CD again, select Repair Your Computer and choose the Command Prompt.  When this loads, enter the following commands and hit enter after each one - include spaces as shown.

Bootrec.exe

bcdedit /export C:\BCD_Backup

c:

cd boot

attrib bcd -s -h -r

ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old

bootrec /RebuildBcd

bootrec /fixmbr

bootrec /fixboot

Remove the Rescue CD and try rebooting now.

Regards,

DP-K

[Brettw0409]

You sir, are my hero. That was successful! Much obliged for your help!!

[DavidPK]

Hi,

You're welcome and good to hear it's working

All the best,

DP-K

[Deeds_E]

This sounds similar to my problem..I didn't see whether or not files are lost if I make and use the Rescue Disk. Could you please let me know? It's my work laptop, and I don't want to get in trouble for screwing it up...so I'm trying to fix it myself. It's currently running BIOS tests...I don't even really know what that is.

[Teather]

I thank you for the previous information.  It did look to be the solution to the problem I am experiencing. 

I've hit a little bit of a road block...  I receive the following error message everytime I have run the repair:

"If you have recently attached a device to this computer, such as a camera of portable music player, remove it and restart your computer.  If you continue to see this message, contact your system administrator or computer manufacturer for assistance."

There is nothing attached to the pc.

Any help would be great! Thanks!

-T =)

[iamkinetic]

I'm having the same problem with my HP Pavilion Elite HPE. I can't seem to boot from the DVD (I get an option to boot from the internal HDD and an external HDD). I'm used to being able to enter BIOS to choose my default boot device, but this HP doesn't seem to have that option.

Any ideas?

[cawgrammy]

I am having the same issue...black screen w/blinking cursor.  How do I create a "rescue CD?"  My computer did not come with any disks.