Hello, everyone! This is my first post. It appears that my issue is unique from any problem I have read.
My other computer is a Dell Inspiron laptop with 1.0 GHz running XP, and it will not properly boot. All it will do after POST and the "Starting Windows" spash screen is to load the cursor onto a blank screen. There is no taskbar, icons, or anything. I can move the cursor, but nothing happens. The menu does not appear when I right-click, and I can not drag to form the outline of a square.
Toggling between video output did not work. I also plugged in a monitor, but I got the same thing when broadcasting to that screen.
This started after I attempted to clean up spyware that snuck onto the machine. I can't even load Safe Mode, and the CD may or may not load, because I can't see the screen. Is there anything I can do to access my laptop? Please help! This stumped the tech crew at work.

Icarus_Night

Last known good configuration ?? did you try that .... if not try that first

Nanosani,
Thanks, but I have already tried Last Known good config, safe mode, and the restore CD. Nothing comes on the screen (except the mouse) after the Windows splash screen. Since there was spyware, I believe malicious code may have compromised or outright deleted a key file. What file (dll?) controls display management on that level?
BTW, the keyboard is locked up, with the CAPS/NUM indicators remaining dark.

Icarus_Night

Did you boot from the windows cd ?? you should be getting some display when you boot from the cd ...

The only display I get, whether with CD or not, is the usual POST/BIOS messaging and the WinXP splash screen. Then comes the moveable cursor on the blank black screen.

Hi, I just arrived here from Google. I've got this exact same problem on Win2k. It started earlier today, no idea how or why or what changed on my system. Recently updated ATI's Catalyst drivers to the newest 5.6s.

I'm running my LCD display on the DVI connector. Booting into windows I just get a black screen with the mouse cursor, nothing else visible. I can tell it loads the startup items. The workaround I figured out was to pop in a game cd that autoruns and shortcut from there to begin the game, changing display modes, and the display responds. I can then quit out of the game(Warcraft 3 in this case) and get back to the desktop no problem. Everything functions fine after that.

I can reproduce the problem from within windows by changing the DVI panel properties in the Catalyst Control Center. If I check or uncheck "Reduce DVI frequency on high-resolution displays" and hit apply, the screen goes black w/cursor again.

I've never seen anything like this. Only thing else that's changed lately were the latest set of windows updates. I'm going to go look into that now.

:eek:

After long periods of working this issue on my clients computer, I have the FIX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! At least it worked for me!

After you boot up to NOTHING, hit CTRL+ALT+DEL...task manager will come up.

Click on New Task and enter...appwiz.cpl

UNINSTALL SP2!!

Reboot

After reboot, reinstall SP2 with other updates.

My clients machine is good as new. She had something that hung SP2 and the computer could not recover. I did all the things everyone mentioned in this thread, last known good, restore, nothing seem to work! I was almost to the point of installing a 2nd HDD and pulling her information over before doing a REINSTALL!

Problem overted!

Hope this helps you out and this is a great site!

Don

To the previous poster, that could be caused by DEP in XP SP2, if you're using a CPU that supports that. Among other things of course.

My particular problem was related to corruption, or something, with the display drivers. Yesterday I un-installed, driver cleaner, re-installed and things are working again normally.

Actually it wouldn't be DEP, that'd just bluescreen. nm!

had some similiar issues that drove me crazy for a couple days.

Windows XP started to freeze at boot when loading drivers. Was able to get to the HD with acroplis and make a backup. Thought an XP file was corrupt, so went to repair mode and fixboot, but this didn't work. Disabled most services. Re-seated all cards/memory. This did not work. Used memtest86 to check memory. No errors. Used Seagate to check HD for errors. No Errors. Checked Power, Temp etc... All tests came back OK. Thought maybe XP was just corrupt with a virus or something. Freeze again during install when XP rebooted. Thought maybe the DELL version of XP was checking the HD for info during install, serial numbers or such. Nope. Updated mobo BIOS. Still freezes. Could boot off floppy, DVD, HD (Win98) to DOS. Could read HD fine. What is going on here? Could it be the video card? Nvidia Gforce... Tested OK. Removed battery to reset CMOS. Still freezes. Check cables and hardware settings in BIOS. Everything looks ok. Went through many posts on several sites. People are replacing mobos, memory, hds, power supplies. Finally, after several days of troubleshooting, I see a couple posts with similiar issues. One guy replaced drive cables, and this worked for him. One guy disable DVD drive and that worked for him. I do have 2 DVD/CDROM drives. One CD-RW and one DVD-RW. The DVD-RW is the drive I always use now and it had been working fine. But the other was BAD! I disconnected that CD-RW and BAM!, Windows XP starts right up. Not sure if it was because the drive was secondary master or just gone. So check these things before buying all new hardware. You may be able to save some money/time.