Windows 8.1 stuck on black screen with cursor

nikos59

Reputable
Mar 29, 2015
2
0
4,510
My latest Windows Update took ages and when it tried to restart (blue screen) it failed.

I pressed alt-ctrl-del and the Welcome screen appeared. From Task Manager I ran rstrui.exe and I restored my system to a previous date. Then, it worked normally.

However, I forgot to disable updating, and I didn't have time to explore it further, so the same problem reappeared with the next restart. It tried to install the updates and to restart my system and it failed, leading to the same black screen with the cursor visible.

Now, System Restore failed, indicating C drive is corrupt. I ran a chkdsk.exe /R (without seeing what happens, because screen was black, but the disk was working a lot) and then I retried, but it failed again to restore.

When I try to reboot in Safe Mode, it still gives me the same black screen (although the mode is safe, because I can see fewer processes running).

Is there any hope? I thought about System Refresh but I will lose all my installed applications (and, I guess, all my Thunderbird emails) and, although I do have a 98% up-to-date backup this does not include emails.

Any ideas? Any hope?
 

nikos59

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Mar 29, 2015
2
0
4,510
Well, I found a (or the?) solution. Reading here and there I saw a tip and it worked. I ran CONTROL PANEL from Task manager and there I uninstalled StartIsBack -and, pronto, my desktop reappeared!

I still don't know whether the "disk corrupt" message was genuine or not but at least the machine is working.
 

MLW

Reputable
Apr 4, 2015
1
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4,510