black screen after running Windows All in One repair

[patndoris]

I have an OP on another forum who ran Windows All in One Repair (and did do a registry backup and System Restore) but after running the program (which ran all night according to the user) and a reboot of the machine, is only getting a black screen in both normal and safe mode.  Any suggestions? 

I'm checking to ensure the user can't access the laptop by connecting an external monitor (not sure if one is available or not) and to take the battery out and use corded power since the machine did run all night, but I'm not terribly hopeful on either of these.

Since the machine isn't booting past a black screen the registry backup and/or restore point aren't likely to be terribly helpful.  Any advice welcomed.

[Shane]

The repairs should never take that long. So check to see how long they actually ran and which repair was taking so long. 90% of the repairs are just registering files and restoring reg keys to a few services. No files are deleted or replaced and no drivers are touched.

When the user turns on the system do they get anything on the screen at all before Windows tries to boot? It may not be a windows problem at all but a hardware problem, if they get nothing at all on the screen that is.

If they get nothing on the screen have them pull the power cord from the system, and with it unplugged hit the power button a few times. This will drain all the components. Then plug it in and turn it on, see if that helps.

If they can see something before Windows tries to boot then here are a few ways to restore the registry if they cant get into Windows
http://www.tweaking.com/articles/pages/tweaking_com_registry_backup_online_help,3.html

Shane

[patndoris]

Thanks will give it a try.  They said the system seems to act as if it's booting but the screen is black.  That's why I wondered if a driver was borked for video and an external monitor would help the problem and let us do a system restore.  If that doesn't work or is unavailable, I'll try the above.  Appreciate the assistance.

[Shane]

Let me know how it goes

Shane

[patndoris]

Thought I'd touch base and let you know what the results were.

In our originial logs, the user had some really borked registry entries which appeared to be mutilated by malware.  For example:
HKLM\...\Run: [DellSupportCenter] TER

Where the file name had been "chopped off" for lack of a better term, and yet the system was still functioning.  When I ran tools on the machine, I'd instructed them to leave these entries alone and not to remove them, since I didn't know what the effects would be.

We had previously run Windows All in One (without an issue), and were down to an internet issue (internet working but red X persisting on connection in tray).  We'd run another automated services repair tool without problem, so I decided to run Windows All in One again.  This time, the graphics driver went - and I suspect it was probably something that was in one of those apparently orphaned but functioning registry entries that I'd previously left alone.

After considering pulling files off with Puppy Linux, the user decided they had sufficient backup, did a repair of Vista, upon which graphics came back but networking issue persisted.  They had original driver disc for Vista - installed an original Dell driver and it finally fixed the remaining issue.

So long story short - we are finally able to get back to business now on this machine. 

[Shane]

Good to hear you got it working, thanks for letting me know

Shane