Windows 8.1 black screen with mouse, cant acces task manager or safe mode

black-screen-of-deathbootwindowswindows 8windows 8.1

I am using Windows 8.1 (as an upgrade from 8). Yesterday I had to boot in safe mode through msconfig, but when my PC restarted, the Windows logo screen went black with only the cursor on the screen. I can't login, and I can't access task manager.

I had such an issue with Windows 8 when normally booting, but it was related to a Nvidia driver problem.

I have tried:

  • using Windows 8.1 USB to boot in advanced recovery:
    • Restore to recovery point failed telling me that my antivirus is the problem.
    • Refresh did not work either – There was a problem refreshing your PC. No changes were made.
    • sfc /scannow returned: There's a system repair pending which requires reboot to complete. Restart Windows and run sfc again.

I was able to get into F8, but none of options provided there worked.

  • I tried Shift+F8, but that didn't work.
  • I tried install windows 8 and picked Upgrade:Install Windows. That returned: The computer started using the Windows installation media. Remove the installation media and restart your computer so that Windows can start normally.
  • I tried install windows 8.1 as upgrade,but got the same message.

I have not tried Custom option, as I don't want to loose all my files.

It seems like I am stuck here! Is there any way I could access my data and back it up on external HDD? I will try any suggestions you have!

Best Answer

"It seems like I am stuck here! Is there any way I could access my data and back it up on external HDD? I will try any suggestions you have!"

Boot from a different operating system. This could be another Windows installed on another partition, or it could be something like these:

http://knoppix.net/

http://www.linuxliveusb.com/

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/

You can then mount your harddisk and copy the files to an external HDD, as long as your hard disk is not encrypted.

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