Windows Vista not booting

Hi

I'm hoping someone can help, I have switch the PC on today to find it won't boot, I can log in then I get a black screen with just the mouse cursor. I have booted to safe mode with no problems and tried a system restore which has not had any effect.

I do not know what to try next, any help will be apprecited.

Thank you

 

Greetings, Emma133...

It's certainly encouraging that you can boot into Safe Mode. A couple of things you might try at that point:

1. Check Control Panel > Windows Update > View update history - see if there are any updates that might correspond with the beginning of your symptoms. If so, then it may be possible to uninstall the culprit(s)...

2. Start > Run > msconfig > Startup, disable all 3rd-party startups. If Windows will boot normally with everything disabled, then you can selectively enable to find the culprit(s)...

 

Hi Caliban

Thank you for replying.

I'm struggling to open Windows Update in safe mode it just dosn't seem to do anything let alone attempt to open. However from the control panel and installed updates the last update seemed to be on the 17/02/2012 there were 44 different Microsoft updates.

When you say disable all 3rd party startups is that everything all at once that shows up in that window?

Thanks again in advance

 

Correct - try 'Disable all', click 'Ok', and reboot - see if Windows starts normally...

*** If your antivirus software is included in that Startup list, you might consider disconnecting from the Internet before disabling...

 

Hi

I disabled all, rebooted desktop was there showing all Icons. Nothing will open though, email, internet connection, I attemped to run msconfig again to start the elimination process but it will not run that.

 

That would seem to indicate that something in your Startup list is causing the problem.

My procedure would be to boot back into Safe Mode and re-enable everything, then attempt to boot normally to see if any symptoms have changed. If not, then it's back to Safe Mode and msconfig, but this time selectively disable the Startups, repeating the process until you find the problem.

It's time consuming, I know - but I think this is the safest way to troubleshoot this type of problem.

 

Thank you Caliban I shall start the process and report back at a later date.