Windows = Blank Welcome Screen with only Cursor

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Spare-Flair

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Yesterday I upgraded to Windows XP SP3 and changed the way users login to the computer and took off the welcome screen expecting the Ctrl-Alt-Del method of bringing up the login menu would work. I rebooted and Windows now boots only to a blank screen with a working cursor and nothing else. There is no administrator account, only my name but I have not set a password at all for myself either.

Ctrl-Alt-Del doesn't work, Alt-F4 doesn't work, I can't do anything at all. I've tried two different keyboards as well.

This is the same for regular windows, safe mode, safe mode with command prompt, vga mode, last known configuration etc. There is no way to get any sort of access to anything I can actually use. It's just a blank screen with a cursor with no users, no login interface, keyboard commands do nothing, etc.

I am not going to do a windows repair from the CD (it's not going to work from experience) but I am willing to try recovery console for a chkdsk, fixmbr, or a bootcfg, but I doubt that will solve my issue.

I've gone into my dual boot that does work and replaced the lsass.exe from system32 because I recalled Malwarebytes detecting a trojan form of lsass.exe and I thought that perhaps it had deleted the genuine article but that wasn't the case and I still only get the blank, blue empty screen with only a cursor and nothing else.

I'm not going to format, I'm adamant about recovering this install of windows because there are literally thousands of programs and settings and tweaks and personal settings that are on this install and I've managed to save it many times before, even through moving it through various different computers. I cannot do a repair from CD because the only disc I have is a pre-SP1 disc and I've tried a repair once before and it doesn't work. Worse comes to worse I can do a raw drive image copy of a backup of this partition from a few months ago but I was wondering if anybody had any other ideas?
 
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Try last known good configuration. Not much you can do on that screen.

Can you get into safe mode
 
k1pp3r said:
Try last known good configuration. Not much you can do on that screen.

Can you get into safe mode
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As I said in my post, no. Same results nomatter how I boot into windows. Only difference is while the regular windows is a blue screen (default background color) at normal resolution, safe mode is the black safe mode screen at vga mode but again, with only the cursor and no prompts or menus or login interfaces. Keyboard commands do nothing.
 
Backup your data from another computer and run a windows repair install. Pretty much your only option. I have never found a way to fix this
 
k1pp3r said:
Backup your data from another computer and run a windows repair install. Pretty much your only option. I have never found a way to fix this
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I have a dual boot and the data is already backed up on a drive image but all the drivers on that one are for the wrong chipset and CPU (old AMD system). I'm pretty certain a windows repair won't work. I get the message that a repair attempt has already been attepted on this installation when I use my old pre SP1 disc. Also, all the other working discs I have are enterprise or streamlined installs and don't offer a repair option in the first place.

I was hoping this could be fixed by some kind of registry repair at recovery console, etc. or that something simple like a dll or exe was missing.
 
I'm gonna keep an eye on this thread because I never did find a solution to this and I think k1pp3r might be right unfortunately.

This also used to happen to Windows 98 (but much sooner :D) and by that time, the software was completely fubar.

To the OP, sorry I can't help in any way but a bump might bring along a solution.
 
heatonparkmassive said:
I'm gonna keep an eye on this thread because I never did find a solution to this and I think k1pp3r might be right unfortunately.

This also used to happen to Windows 98 (but much sooner :D) and by that time, the software was completely fubar.

To the OP, sorry I can't help in any way but a bump might bring along a solution.
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I'm not going to give up. I tried a linux offline user and registry editor (http://home.eunet.no/pnordahl/ntpasswd/) and played around with the users but it doesn't do anything. I can't figure out a way to get into the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE part of the registry as ntpasswd seems to only access the SAM and security hives.

Right now, I'm going to make a BartPE bootable image on USB and see if that GUI registry editor will be any help.

Other than that, I'll goto recovery console and try chkdsk, fixmbr, or a bootcfg, etc. but I doubt those will do anything. If all those steps fail, then I guess I will be cloning the harddrive from my AMD 64 system and then running it in safe mode in Windows on my Core2Quad system (lol!).

aliensRreal said:
You can try this: http://forums.cclonline.com/showthread.php?t=1183

Basically it outlines how to perform a system restore using the recovery console. I have not been able to get it to work, but you may have some luck.
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That's pretty awesome, I'll have to give that a go. I used to do this all the time on my AMD XP system where if you hit reset during the windows loading screen, the registry would automatically corrupt, but I was doing it from the registry backups inside the system32/config folders and didn't think about the hidden system restore files. The problem is no optical drive where I currently am haha! Guess I will go buy one.
 
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SOLVED! Everything fixed. After googling for two days, I think that I'm the first one to post a solution for this issue on the entire internet :) Turns out it's just another registry corruption.

Seeing as I didn't have a working CD with recovery console (many enterprise/streamline installs don't have that option) and I don't even have an optical drive, I just brute forced a manual system restore of the registry files through Windows Explorer :)

1. Boot from another OS on another drive or partition.
2. Turn off simple file sharing, show system and hidden folders.
3. Take full ownership of the System Volume Information folder of the drive that needs to be fixed (ensure that replace owner on subcontainers and objects is checked).*
3. Goto the proper GUID folder (since you are on another WinXP install, it will start making restores for that installation as well on this harddrive, make sure you find the right one). Open the restore folder and enter the snapshot folder and pick one of the RP folders with the desired restore date.
4. Copy the registry_machine_(DEFAULT/SAM/SECURITY/SOFTWARE/SYSTEM) files somewhere else and rename, removing "registry_machine" from each.
5. Move the files into the correct system32/config folder and write over all the existing DEFAULT/SAM/SECURITY/SOFTWARE/SYSTEM registry files.
6. Reboot and boot into the actual OS and it should be as if a system restore had occurred except that no files other than the registry hives have been restored.
7. Retake ownership (or grant them to your system) of the System Volume Information folder and any other folders you had previously taken ownership of while in the secondary OS.
8. Do an actual full system restore just in case.

* If you don't have any system restore backups available there should still be backups of each registry hive inside the system32/config folder as a last case scenario
 
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I had a similar issue to this, but for a different reason. I have my PC connected to my TV in the living room from my room through the wall, and I an lcd at my desk. After installing Win7 it picked my living room TV as the primary monitor, even though it was off. Since the TV and the PC are in different rooms, and the TV usually on another input, it took me a while to figure it out lol.

Different issue I know, thought I'd share my story, glad you worked it out.
 
aliensRreal said:
Thank you, that information will be handy.
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Indeed. I always like hearing a solution to a problem I've encountered yet wasn't able to solve.

So kudos to Spare-Flair for sorting out the problem and coming back to share the solution, others including myself will all benefit.


If there was a beer smiley I'd use it.

:)
 
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