It’s true – to stay safe on the internet, it is always good to have protection from malware, adware, and spyware.  These are annoying, and, quite often, dangerous.  So what do we do to stay protected?  We get programs like SpyBot Search & Destroy, or protection from McAfee and Norton.  We do a scan, the program finds  some problems, you go through the process, and at the end – it shows a few things that couldn’t be fixed, but can be removed.  It warns us that removing that file could potentially make some programs on the computer run improperly.  Without thinking, we delete those files.  The next thing we know, we’re booting up to nothing but a mouse cursor and a black screen.  What happened?  If you’re a Windows user, and this has happened to you – you should read this.

We tend to take lightly the warnings that our own online protection software notifies us about.  We don’t take the time to read where these files are located and what programs these files are associated with.

Recently, my sister had a problem – she had some massive spyware/adware problems; she had alot of pop-ups, which, in my opinion, were caused by some P2P (Peer-to-peer) softwares she had downloaded.  So, she took my advice and downloaded Spybot S&D on her Windows XP SP2 machine, downloaded it definition updates, ran a full scan, and deleted all unfixed files.  The result – extremely slow and incomplete bootup.  It seemed as if all that booted up was a black screen and the mouse cursor.  She called me and asked me to look at it to see what I could do.

Well, I went to her house and did the typical things: I booted up normal, but to only encounter the black screen.  I booted up in safemode, and got the same thing.  I booted up in safemod with DOS, but STILL couldn’t do anything.  After hours of trying different methods WITHOUT reinstalling Windows, at the end of the night, we decided to turn the computer on in the morning and just let it sit.

About a 30 min to an hour after booting up normally, we got a backgroundless desktop with the normal icons, but no start menu.  This told me that the taskbar (start menu) was having trouble booting up and was using up all the PC’s memory.  So, I conjured up some more ideas.

First, I tried to pull up the MSConfig menu and keep some programs from running on startup – sadly, MSConfig just wouldn’t pull up – it said I had to be running an Administrator account.  So, I restarted the computer and waited awhile, except this time, I tried to pull up MSConfig earlier on in the process.  It still did not work.  I tried this also in safemode and safemode with DOS – both got me nothing – no msconfig, no desktop icons, nothing.

So, since this alone took HOURS, I decided to come back the next day.  So, keep in mind, this is day number THREE.  The computer was painfully slow.  I decided that since explorer.exe was partially working (evident by the desktop icons) that I would pull up Windows Explorer to browse files and find the System Restore program.  If anything could fix the problem, one would think this would be it.

After an hour of browsing, I finally got to the folder where the System Restore program was located.  I tried opening the program, but an error came up telling me that System Restore could not repair my computer and to try again another time.  By this time, I was getting really frustrated.  Since we didn’t have the tools at hand to back up files, and since my sister really didn’t care anymore about losing files, I got a Windows XP SP2 disk to reinstall Windows.  I put the disk in the drive, restarted the computer, hit F8 for boot options, and booted from the CD Drive.

Now, this disk has the option to fix Windows, or install/replace windows on a hard drive.  The “fix” mode took me to a DOS screen, and all that really did was tell me useless information.  I exited THAT and rebooted back to the disk drive, and selected to reinstall Windows XP.

Now here’s where the SOLUTION is:

When you select a hard drive to install windows, it recognizes that there is already another version of Windows XP on that hard drive – so, it asks if you would like to repair that version, or replace it.  Well, if I replace it, all the files on the computer would be gone – which would stink, but repairing would keep all my sister’s programs, settings, and files installed.  So, obviously, since I had nothing to lose, I chose repair.

It went through the whole process and acted as if it was completely reinstalling Windows XP, it even took around 40 minutes – just like I was reinstalling windows!  How fun!

Well, the wait was worth it, because at the end of the day, I was able to boot up the machine like it used to boot up before encountering any problems.  I decided to get her AVG Free Antivirus – since she didn’t have that.  I installed it, ran it, and had all problems fixed.  There was a good chunk of “unfixable” files that could be deleted, which I checked to see what they were for.  I found they were not essential to the PC’s performance, and had them deleted.

Finally after midnight of the 3rd day, my work was done.

So what’s the point?

Simple, be smart and use common sense when dealing with  your PC’s safety.  Don’t delete things you don’t know about unless you’re sure it won’t effect your PC’s performance.  This applies to many things like messing with msconfig’s start up options.  Also, don’t use P2P programs, they are dangerous.  You can read about all these things in another one of my articles about speeding up your computer.

Also, when your at wit’s end and are about to take the step to reinstall windows, choose the drive to reinstall it on, AND THEN CHOOSE REPAIR!  This way, you can at least save your files.

So if you’re having that wretched problem of a black background and white cursor with no start menu or desktop icons, pop in that Windows install disk, pick the hard drive to reinstall it on, and choose the repair option.  I hope that helps ANYONE who has had this problem – which I have done some reasearch and know that there are many who have had the same issue – nothing seemed to work, so they just reinstalled windows completely, and sadly, lost all of their files. 

Again, be sure to use this repair option that the disk offers after you pick a hard drive to reinstall windows on, it could save you some head aches.

Note:  This solution was tested on Windows XP, nothing older, nothing newer.  I’m sure any newer version of windows would have the same option, but as far as an older version of Windows – I’m not completely sure.  Anyways, if you have a computer THAT old, you need to upgrade.  Just do it, you’ll aprreciate it

What Do You Think?
Did this help you out at all?  Do you have any questions?  Have you found a different solution to this “black screen and cursor only” problem?  Whatever you have to say, let me know.  You can e-mail me at david@funkytower.com and I’ll be happy to get back to you.

Take it easy,
David Crandall

This entry was posted on Monday, August 18th, 2008 at 5:50 pm and is filed under Antivirus, Computers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.