Screen going black before logon

Half an hour ago I turned on my laptop (Dell XPS 16 running W7 Pro), opened Google Chrome, and turned on my WiFi. As Chrome was loading, my screen went black. The computer was still running fine (judging by the audio). So I put my computer to sleep and turned it back on, but still black.
Next, I forced a restart. The Dell logo showed up, then the Windows logo, but when it should have gone to the login screen, it turned black again. As before, the computer was working fine (judging by the audio). I restarted numerous times, but every single time, it would go black after the Windows logo.

Some things I can tell you:
-Everything works fine in Vista (which I dual boot)
-Everything works fine in 7 Safe Mode
-Rolling back the video driver doesn't do anything
-Hitting Windows+P makes makes screen flash but goes back to black
-Starting with an external monitor connected via VGA = same results

Things I did out of the usual today:
-Used laptop with HDTV via HDMI
-Accidentally stuck USB cable into displayport (not too far in)
-Deleted some schedule tasks (e.g. Google Updater, IE Feed Updater)


NVMD, SOLVED!

 

Well I'll ask the obvious.

Since it boot's into Safe Mode, did you try a System Restore?

If everything works fine dual booting into Vista, then I don't think it's hardware related.

 

I'll be honest with you, I did not think of that.

Mainly because I had not installed anything, or gotten any messages about updates. However, sneaky Windows apparently installed updates earlier today.

System restore worked! Crisis averted. Thank you so much!

 

Glad you got it working. You'd be surprised on how much a System Restore can repair.