Vista won't boot to login screen

S

Sp33dFr33k

2[H]4U
Joined
Apr 20, 2002
Messages
2,481
I've been working on a Vista 32bit system since yesterday trying to get it to boot to the login screen. It boots to a black screen with a mouse pointer.

I can't get to safe mode (same black screen with mouse cursor)
Can't repair, Windows says nothing is wrong.
Check Disk comes back clean
SFC /scannow comes back clean
Virus scan is clean (using offline scanner)
No recovery points, I guess it was disabled.

I've Googled and read tons of posts but can't find anything that works.

Thoughts or ideas?
 
That's everything I would of thought to do. What type of offline scanner did you use? Try Microsoft's new bootable product (burn it to an optical disc or USB) Microsoft Standalone System Sweeper.

Quickly searching online found someone suggesting to try booting the system into Safe Mode with Command Prompt, then typing in MSCONFIG and try the diagnostic startup.

Same forum also suggest this. Doesn't sound like it would be it but the person said it causes black screens.

I have seen this problem a few times and have fixed it by removing the UpperFilter and LowerFilter registry keys for the CDROM drive. This won't work for everyone, but it's worth a shot.

This article explains which keys to erase but not how to do them if you can't get into Windows.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929461

What I did was:
1.Boot to the VISTA recovery/repair console (whether off of a DVD/CD or if you can do it straight from the hard drive).
2.Run command prompt from the main menu of the and type "regedit" (without the quotes).
3. Click on the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE once so it is highlighted.
4. Click File, Load Hive. Browse to the "C:\Windows\system32\config" folder and highlight the "system" file (this is the system hive of the registry for the computer) and click Open/OK.
5. Name the hive "sys hive" (it doesn't actually matter what you name it, just don't name it the same as another hive) and hit ok.
6. Navigate to the hive you just created under the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and you will see keys under it called ControlSetxx (xx usually being 1,2,3 or another low #).

Following the Microsoft Article, under each of those keys do the following steps 7-11.
7. Locate, and then click the following registry subkey:
ControlSetxx\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}.
8. In the right pane, right-click UpperFilters (if present), and then click Delete.
9. Click Yes to confirm the removal of the UpperFilters registry entry.
10. In the right pane, right-click LowerFilters (if present), and then click Delete.
11. Click Yes to confirm the removal of the LowerFilters registry entry.
12. Navigate back up so the "sys hive" is highlighted again and click File, Unload Hive.
13. Close regedit and restart the computer.
Click to expand...

Otherwise I'd reinstall. There's nothing else I can think of trying.
 
Last edited:
I tried the offline scanners I had: MS, AVG, BitDefender. I connected the drive to an external enclosure to try some Windows based scanners and I'll check the registry but I agree that if safe mode isn't working registry Run items probably aren't the issue.
 
if you have a dedicated card with a machine that has intergrated video, remove the dedicated card and power up machine. then remove drivers and reinstall video card.
 
^tell the machine to boot to low resolution video mode (640*480) and see if the machine boot that way. if machine still does not boot, enable debug mode and see where it gets hung up (the last file listed). use F8 to get the windows boot option menu
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top