dv7tqe Black Screen Issue??

Hi everyone,

After getting delayed 3 times (almost a month), my HP Pavilion dv7t QE arrived on Monday, although I didn't receive it until Wednesday afternoon since I was out of town.

I wanted to perform a clean install of Windows 7, so the first thing I did was create a set of recovery discs and a Windows 7 disc, following this thread.

After what appeared to be a successful install, I started installing updates, and when I restarted, my computer didn't boot up properly and it hasn't since.

It gets to the "starting Windows" screen, but then will go black, and even if the lights are glowing and the fan is spinning, nothing will happen, so I'm forced to reset. Sometimes it will go through to the login screen and desktop, but if I restart, it does the same thing.

Eventually I used the recovery discs that I made to restore to factory condition, but that still didn't help. I followed this guide from HP, and the hard drive and memory tests passed, and an image appears on an external monitor if attached.

I ended up calling HP tech support, and they came to the conclusion that since the hardware tests passed, it must be software, and that my Windows image might have been bad from the factory, which is why the recovery discs didn't seem to help. New, official, recovery discs are en route.

What do you think about this? Is there anything else I might be able to do in the meantime? What would be the next step if this doesn't work? I'm kind of freaking out, because my parents very kindly provided the funds for this graduation present, and I'd hate for it not to work!!

Any advice would be appreciated, and I'm sorry for the long-winded post.