[SOLVED] Black screen with blinking cursor only (no mouse) - Windows 8 after possible (?) update

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speedracer216

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Sep 28, 2013
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I built this gaming PC several years ago. Every once in a while the screen goes black for a second with videos on certain websites like nfl.com. Other than that no issues... until today.

Last night when I powered down it looked like it might do updates, didn't see any happen. Today it won't load windows. "Boots" to a black screen with a white blinking rectangle at the top left and no mouse anywhere.

Monitor is connected to GPU via HDMI when I get this screen. If I do the same thing with the HDMI connected to the motherboard (GPU still connected) the screen doesn't seem to get a signal. Usually i can switch back and forth while it's on and they both function.

I tried booting from Windows 8 install disc - shows an option for repair but auto-repair doesn't work and system restore kicks me out saying "need to choose an operating system"
I made sure nothing is plugged in (accept USB keyboard/mouse)
I also tried turning it off and turning it on again ;)

Motherboard is Gigabyte z87x-ud3h if that helps. When I hit that black screen the LED has the code "AE" which is "Boot to legacy OS".

Any ideas??? Thanks in advance!
 
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speedracer216

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Sep 28, 2013
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I did not reset or update the BIOS. I think it always boots to that "AE" code that indicates legacy. I could be wrong. Don't remember if I set it that way on purpose at one point, but I didn't change anything that I know of other than shut it down last night and boot it up this morning to the issue...

Although when I hit F12 to get to the boot device menu the top of the screen says "GIGABYTE - UEFI DualBIOS" ??
 
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speedracer216

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Sep 28, 2013
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Additional info: I tried the Windows 8 install disk and said "Refresh PC" as a repair option and it gave me the message "The drive where windows is installed is locked. Unlock the drive and try again."

No clue what that means or how it happens. It's a SanDisk SSD. Searching some info on that now too...
 
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speedracer216

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Sep 28, 2013
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Drive is only a few years old. Had a bad habit of leaving it on all night for a couple years. Does that effect it? I read somewhere that consumer grade SSD's should be able to write 25gb/day for over 10 years or something.

We save documents and mp3's to the desktop (on that drive) until we organize them, but longer term storage is on a separate HDD. Do lots of little writes affect that? If so, what's the easy test? Last night I hooked the drive to my laptop via USB just to get some files off of it in case worse comes to worse. Should I try putting a new file on it to see if it writes?
 
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