Playing around with a possible fix, I held the power button down for 60 seconds. It is going through a windows update right now, but appears to be working.
Have same problem.
Have booted in safe mode, screen works in safe mode. Another site suggested cold boot; but this laptop will not cold boot without draining battery or doing MAJOR SURGERY to remove and replace battery. Boot POST screen works as does password screen, but start, desktop and all other screens for WIN 8 DO NOT FUNCTION. With Cntl+Alt+Dlet can start programs and they run 9and show up on screen, only basic Win 8 screens fail to show up. Initial description is in error. It boots fine, just doesn't display basic Win 8 startup/desktop or anything else, apps when you get them to run display just fine