Thread: Black Screen with active cursor???

Hi Everyone!

I installed Widows 8 Consumer Preview today.
I'm having exactly the same problem I had with Developer Preview.

When it boots I get a black screen with a active cursor but no desktop.

Ctrl Alt Delete and any other keyboard commands are inactive.

I gave up on DP but I would like to try and resolve this.

I have a normal ATI 5870 video card and the drivers are all up to date.

I did see a message at the start of install, where is checks your computer, that I would have to install my ATI software from within Windows 8 but I assumed they were only talking about the Catalyst Control Center not the drivers.

Is there any way to boot into Windows 8 in safe mode while dual booting?
I have video up until when I assume it is switching to my video card.

Maybe if I could get in, in safe mode I could install the drivers.

Anyone have any ideas?

Why am I the only one having this problem?

My computer was recently restored to factory settings and this was done since I tried to install DP. All the drivers were then updated.

Mike

Mike I was this Windows 8 - Dell N5110 - black screen - Windows 8 Forums and wondered if there anything there that might help look at post 3
Joe

A mystery indeed. Mike - and right through the developer. Have you installed the catalyst? If so, stop it running (msconfig - start tab) and see if that gives you any results.

Hi Guys

I don't have Catalyst installed in Windows 8.
The problem here is that I don't have any access to get in and do anything.

Anyone know a way to try and start Windows 8 in Safe Mode?

There is nothing strange about my computer set up, Windows 7 never has problems with finding drivers, I never have problems installing anything else.

But this has been consistent through 3 installation attempts.

The install goes smoothly, the computer reboots, the fish icon comes up on the screen.
Then the screen goes black and the cursor appears.

The cursor moves around normally, but no key board commands have any effect.

I've tried clicking around but noting happens.

I don't know where to go from here since I don't have access to any thing inside Windows 8.

If I could load video drivers for it some how maybe the desktop would show but I don't know for sure that the drives are the problem, I don't know what it's trying to load.

There is video as long as it's using the VGA drivers.

I have removed Windows 8 from the boot menu for now, so my computer boots into Windows 7 normally.

Anyone know if reinstalling using the setup.exe option instead of the .ISO file would make any difference? Does it create a different install disk then just downloading the ISO file.

Mike

Maybe go over exactly how you are installing, like same drive, with other drives, or separate drive, etc. Do you show anything beside the mouse cursor, no blinking line cursor? What type of video output are you using, and is your monitor set up to see that source? I just installed mine again and noticed the fish getting smaller as the resolution was changed. Is that where yours has problems?

Hi

I'm installing from a DVD with the ISO image burned on it.
I'm installing to a separate partition on my second hard drive.
This becomes drive E:\.

It boots fine and goes through the install process.
There isn't really much I can do after I start the process.
The whole process only takes about 15 minutes and the computer reboots twice during the process.

As I said I've gone through the process 3 times, twice with Windows 8 DP and once with Windows 8 CP.

The results are exactly the same every time. Just a black screen with an active cursor.
The cursor moves normally, there is nothing else visible and the keyboard has no noticeable effect.

I have to use EasyBCD to add Windows 7 to the boot menu after each install it doesn't happen automatically it defaults to Windows 8 and I have to force it to the boot screen and select Windows 7 to get in so I can change the boot order and start the boot menu.

I have created a bootable USB drive in Windows 7 with the installation files on it using the setup utility instead of the ISO image.

It's different from the installation on the disk.
The disk is 3.3 Gigabytes.
The USB stick is 2.78 Gigabytes and has an extra folder named Mediameta.xml, which if opened takes me to a web page with a block of code of some sort.



I'm wondering if I will get different results if I format the partition and try it again from the USB stick. Maybe it got more information when it created the setup files then it had in the ISO.

Anyone have an opinion on that?

I think that some where during the installation there was a note in the bottom left corner of the screen that said "Load Driver".

Could I possibly load the video driver at this point, if so what is it looking for?
Do I just point it to a folder that has the ATI drivers in it or what?

Well, that's about all I know about it.
Any ideas appreciated.

Mike

You have a black screen after every attempt. I am sympathetic. In order to try to work this through, how are you then accessing easybcd, and by what method do you then "force" it to the boot screen?
I don't think it is needed to accept the "load drivers" option. On my test machine, I have a really antique graphics card, which installs without problems.
I am wondering, as this is a long on-going story, if there isn't something in the bios which Windows 8 does not like? You could try resetting the bios back to all its standards?

Hi

Once Windows 8 is installed I have to use F8 to bring up the boot menu and select Windows 7 to get it to boot.
Once in Windows 7 I can open EasyBCD and move Windows 7 to the number one position and enable the boot menu.

I'm not getting the boot menu by default.

Right now I still have Windows 8 installed but I have it removed from the boot menu, so that my computer boots into Windows 7 by default.

My computer was completely restored to factory setting since I tried installing W8 DP, I figured that would probably fix the problem but it didn't.

I don't have problems with anything else.
No errors, no malware, all drivers up to date, 0% fragmentation everything checked etc.

I never thought about this before but why can it show the cursor?
Is the cursor not processed but the video card?

Mike

As for the question about loading a video driver, I think you can during the install. I have been trying to think if there was a way to keep the resolution from being changed, but I have not come up with anything.

Do you have onboard video and a video card?

Do you have any other video cards you could try. Maybe it is just something with that one card.

Do you have another monitor, or a TV you could plug the system into?

Edit: I forgot to mention, some of your keyboard keys may not function as normal. On my Logitech keyboard, the Num Lock key does not stay active. Maybe some of your F keys are behaving differently.

Originally Posted by MikeHawthorne

Hi Everyone!

I installed Widows 8 Consumer Preview today.
I'm having exactly the same problem I had with Developer Preview.

When it boots I get a black screen with a active cursor but no desktop.

Ctrl Alt Delete and any other keyboard commands are inactive.

I gave up on DP but I would like to try and resolve this.

I have a normal ATI 5870 video card and the drivers are all up to date.

I did see a message at the start of install, where is checks your computer, that I would have to install my ATI software from within Windows 8 but I assumed they were only talking about the Catalyst Control Center not the drivers.

Mike

I have the exact same problem, today i installed win 8 consumer preview, dual booth with win 7, and everything went well until the windows 8 starts, but only with black screen and cursor, but it doesnt respond to any of the keyboard keys or mouse movement or clicks...

I also tried safe mode but it didnt work, actualy it couldn load in safe mode, there was a message that it can not start windows in safe mode.

now that i have read some of the comments on this topic, i think it could only be the grafic drivers (i have Ati Radeon 5770), and maybe something with the hdmi tv out (on win 7 i always use dual screen with tv connected with hdmi cable).

Also, after instalation of win 8, there was no option for dual booth, so i had to press F9 while boothing to open windows 8 options screen and to choose "load previous version of windows" (or something like that) to go back to win 7...