Black Screen after boot on Envy 4-1030US Ultrabook

[TerryQ]

David,

Is this a possibility: 

If I was to delete the only existing user account "Joann," would Windows create a new account automatically? 

Or is it even possible to delete the only user account?

Terry

[TerryQ]

David,

If killing and rebuilding the user account is not feasible, I think I'm left with having to follow some kind of backup recovery, either using Windows 10 or Acronis backups. 

The Windows 10 backup data was recorded in December, 2017, and the Acronis was in February of 2018.  So either way, some data will be lost. 

The thing that my wife would like is to get as much of the emails that are stored in the Microsoft Outlook database.  That database is in one file, which has a .pst extension.  It might have a name like personal.pst.

So I took the computer back to the command line, and moved it to X:\  (root of drive), and applied this command:

dir *.* /s

This caused many, many files  and folders to fly by the screen.  (so far so good)

Then I used this command:

dir *.pst /s

Nothing was found. 

So either the Outlook data file has been wiped out, or I'm doing something wrong in trying to find it. 

Do you see what I might be missing?

Terry

[TerryQ · Accepted solution]

David,

I have gotten my wife's computer going.  I'll write back later how I got to it.

[TerryQ]

David, here is a list of what I tried and what worked:

FAILED:  Following recommendations from the HP Discussion Board.  I tried "draining" information after shutdown by holding the shutdown key for at least 30 seconds.  Since some of those threads said to remove the battery if removable, I opened the computer, unplugged the battery and repeated process. Still did nothing to improve situation.

FAILED:  You showed me how to reach Windows option by holding down the shift key while clicking on the Restart button. 

-- first attempt, at your suggestion, to add another user, using a command line and script to create new user account.  That failed Failed after several trials.

FAILED Tried to recover the Microsoft Outlook data files (extension .pst), using the command line and searching for them on the computer.  After several tries, they were not being identified by the dir command.

SUCCEEDED.  The options found using the Shift-Restart included installing a system restore, and also installing an available system image.  The restore did not work.  But  the system image DID install.  The Microsoft Outlook data was restored to a Febuary date.  My wife was okay with that.

After the install, I rebooted, and the computer identified some "Startup problems."  I let it do a repair.

I also did a hard drive check.  The computer has an SSD drive, so I let it repair what it could.

I'm now in process of doing a new Windows System Image, and I'll also manually back up a few random separate files, like the Outlook Emails.  

Thanks for all of your help,

Terry