Windows 7 won't start. black screen??

I have a Toshiba C650 that I bought 5 months ago. Yesterday, after Chrome decided to lock up on me, I had to force a shut down and when I went to restart it, I get "Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause...etc." and two choices: "Launch Startup Repair," and "Start Windows Normally." Both of these options lead to "Windows is loading files..." and then a black screen with a cursor. I've tried booting it in Safe Mode and all its options, but I just get the same, black screen. I've never had problems with it before. Can anyone help?

 

Had this exact same problem with my lap top. It was a bad hard drive. When i brought it in to a computer repair shop, they informed me that they have had a lot of toshiba lap top hard drives go out in the first 8 months in this manner with no explination.

Given your situation is exact copy of mine, I will bet your hard drive crashed. They could not recover any data off mine either. Bad ordeal.


Good luck with toshiba CS. They found every way possible not to fix mine.

 

The best way to check whether the problem is Windows or the hardware is to download and burn a Linux live CD and then boot from it (or make a bootable Linux flash drive). The Live Linux doesn't need to use the HDD to boot so you can then then check if the HDD is readable.

John

 

i had the same problem but with a desktop that i built, try looking in the bios and see if the HDD is in first place for booting, with mine it was in second place,
let me guess, a black screen with a cursor flashing in the top left corner. may not mean a failed HDD.just make sure your HDD is the first to boot.

 

may not be good news for me,my wife got me a C650 for christmas

 

And remove all external drives if you have any plugged in-USB's, Ex. HDD's, etc.

 

yes ur right that too