Windows not loading

Well I installed Vista Ultimate on my laptop yesterday. I was messing with all the programs and downloading all the necessary things... When my laptop just completely froze(even the mouse pointer), so I had no other option but to turn it off manually(holding the power button in). So I restart and now I am stuck on a completely black screen. Everything seems to be working on the inside, I can hear the fans running and it even shows the blinking little light when it's loading something. Only thing is that the light isn't blinking, it's just on. It goes to that screen right after it says "loading windows vista" or something like that.

What do I do guys? I've never had this happen to me...

 

Try a system restore.Maybe the last thing you installed was not good.
I think it`s F8 for most laptops , keep pushing it repeatedly after the BIOS screen.
Also , might be a RAM issue. Or a HDD issue,but since Vista is loading,it most likely is software related.
Have you installed SP1 by any chance?

 

Also reseat your hard drive and your RAM sticks. I've personally had to deal with a computer that randomly froze like that, and it turned out to be a faulty connection.

 

Hey thanx alot for the replies guys, I appreciate it. I did think it would be something like that, because it just froze out of nowhere and now it's just completely stuck. How do I reset my HDD and Ram sticks? I bought 1 extra GB stick for my laptop it is currently running on 1 GB but I heard that vista would snail with only 1GB or RAM, and I just wanted to test it out. I tested it out for a while yesterday and it runs pretty good. I don't think you need more than 1GB of RAM with this, but to each his own right...

Will resetting my HDD reformat everything?

 

Windows was running perfect. It ran all day pretty good, then I was opening up a video with quicktime and it just completely froze. I've been stuck there since... It looks like it's going to load but it's just stuck right in the middle. I haven't installed SP1 on vista yet, that what I was getting to yesterday but it crashed on me . Will the system restore take me back to XP or how does that work? Thanks for the help bud...

 

Reseating the hdd won`t touch the drive contents.The system restore will take you back to the most recent config that worked ...

 

Reseat, not reset

Greg means taking the hard drive and RAM out and putting it back in, or at least just making sure it is in all the way.

It is a good idea to check that, but I'd imagine that's not the problem since it started to load Windows... But check anyway like Greg said.

I'd bet the system restore is going to do the trick though, like the other poster said.

 

Will this still be on vista though? I just don't want to lose any data from my HDD. What do you mean that it's gonna go back to the last configuration that worked? My bad, I'm a noob lol...

 

I will go back home and RESEAT everything... But I just want to make sure I got all my options written down so I won't have to get back to my friends computer. Thanx for all the help guyz, tryin to get this show on the road...

 

If you do a Vista system restore it won't delete anything. If you do a manufacturers restore it will bring it back to the way it was when you bought it.

I don't use Vista, so I can't be much help about how to do a Vista system restore if you can't boot Windows, but I would imagine there is a boot option when loading Windows or you can do it with the OS disc. <---Bolded text is a guess. Maybe someone else here can tell you exactly how

 

Yeah, it does give me the option to do F10 and F8 right when I start the computer, then it takes me to the screen that says windows vista is loading. After that it goes to the black screen and remains like that...

 

Yes, Vista has a boot option,just like XP, except it`s not called Last Known Good Config that Worked,but something similar anyways.

 

What does it say pressing F8 or F10 will do?

Could be a lot of different things.

 

I think it's boot, and system restore. Not too sure though, I don't have the computer with me right now. Just came to a friends and forgot to bring it with me...

 

Usually when the BIOS is first loading it will give an option of two F keys to press. F2 and F10 for me. One will load the BIOS setup and one will load the Boot Priority setup.

Neither of those are what you are looking for.

I just rebooted and looked (again remember I'm using XP, but I assume Vista is similar). It didn't list list and key to press, but by randomly pressing keys I determined pressing F8 BEFORE Windows begins to load will bring me into the Windows boot options, which is where you want to get to.

 

It's last known good startup I think.

 

Yeah they should be about the same... I have an HP DV2000 if that helps at all. So after I get to the windows boot options what do I do? I do remember there are 2 F keys to press but I can't remember what those are... thanx for your time Greg, I'm sure I will get to use my laptop when I get back home (hopefully!) . I just need to know all I gotta do and I won't give up until she comes back to life lol...

 

Once you're in the Windows boot options you'll see something similar to "Boot Last Know Good Configuration". One of the other posters with Vista said exactly what it is a few replies ago.

You just navigate to it with the down-arrow key until it is selected then press enter.

 

Will do then... I'll hopefully reply next time from my HP. Cheers...

 

Well, here I am again... Tried everything but had no luck . Tried going back to the last good working configuration and it still gave me the black screen, system restore - was loading but then froze while it was loading all of the files. Tried logging in through safe mode and didnt work either. Reseated HDD and put in the new RAM sticks but still had no luck... This really sucks!

 

That sucks man... I wish I could be more help, but as I said before I don't use Vista and would be as lost as you with it.

The only thing that I can think of is that XP has an option to do a reinstall of JUST the system files, but leave the other files as they were. It helped me when my computer was in a similar state.

Does anyone know if Vista has an install option like that?

 

Hi.

If you boot from your Vista disk, it will give you the option to repair your computer, and if that does not work, it can also do a system restore.

I had the problem with a black boot screen in vista, yesterday in my case it was the nvidia drivers.

Regards

John.

 

Well I already tried putting in the Vista Ultimate install disk but didn't really do much. How do I get to that repair computer option? Do I have to press anything?