Windows 10: Windows 10 black screen on boot - booting from USB doesn't work

Hey everyone

I've been losing my mind over the last four days trying to solve a big problem with my laptop. The TL;DR is: if I try to boot normally, I see a screen saying "Preparing Automatic Repair", followed by a blank screen; booting from USB just skips the "Preparing" screen, going directly to the blank screen; booting with the Lenovo OneKey Recovery program takes me to a screen saying "Loading Files", and then the blank screen.

The model I own is a Lenovo IdeaPad Z400 Touch.

The full story of what happened is I was using my computer last friday, and nothing seemed off. If I remember well, I had only Firefox open with two tabs while I was playing a game (League of Legends, if it matters). I was in voice chat with a friend (this will be relevant). Mid-game, the screen suddenly froze for I'd say less than 10 seconds, but I could still hear the sound effects and I was still talking with my friend normally (he could hear me, I could hear him, there was no lag or sound breaking), so on the audio part it's like nothing ever happened. The screen went back to normal after those seconds and I continued playing.
A few minutes later, it froze again, and again audio-side everything was fine. This time, however, it lasted longer, let's say minutes. Since it was taking a while to go back to normal, I decided to forcefully shut down the PC by pressing the power button. In hindsight, that wasn't such a good decision.

When trying to boot again, I was showed the Lenovo logo and those spinning white dots, as usual, but then saw a "Preparing Automatic Repair" text towards the bottom of the screen. After some time, the screen turned black. Not black as in turned-off (because there was still brightness coming off of the screen), but blank. There was absolutely nothing on screen: no mouse, no blinking underscore, nada.

Following that, I tried to restart many times through pressing the power button during boot, as to reach the advanced startup options and try to restore from there, but the boot process never skipped or went past the "Preparing" screen.

I tried to launchthe integrated OneKey Recovery System (by putting it as first place in the boot priority through the BIOS), and instead of the "Preparing" screen, there was a "Loading Files" screen with a progress bar. But after that, fully black screen again.

After that failed, I created a Windows 10 installation USB drive using Microsoft's Media Creation Tool on a second laptop, inserted the drive into the fauly one, and powered it on (and changed the boot priority to put the USB on top). After the Lonovo logo and spinning dots, it went straight to the black screen. Nothing else changed. USB boot was enabled, by the way.

After all this saga, I googled my problem and tried a few random suggested things. I couldn't find anyone in the same exact situation as I though.

From the top of my head, I've tried:
- Removing the battery, holding the power button for 1 minutes, then putting the battery back on and trying to boot;
- Conecting the laptop to a second screen, through both VGA and HDMI ports (individually, I didn't try both at the same)

- A recovery software by Tenorshare called Fix Genius/Boot Genius, which created another USB drive. However, it wouldn't be listed on BIOS so I couldn't tell the computer to boot from it.


I actually can't remember everything I've so far, sorry.


Right now, I'm on the process of trying to reach the CMOS battery so I can remove it for some time and then see if something changes (another suggestion I found)


Do any of you have any insight as to what I could do to save my computer?


:)

 

Windows 10 USB boot

Hi there, am not a windows 10 expert. I have a pc in the bedroom on windows 10, I messed up the bootloader trying to fix the xp on that system.

System wont boot, trying to repair via win 10 usb installer.

Downloaded the media creation tool to install windows 10 installer on usb stick. Not compatible with a host of usb sticks I have. Tried the usb sticks that others use, but I think they use rufus; as the media creation tool by win 10 does not detect the usb stick.

So quick question, the win10 machine i am trying to repair the bootloader is a win7 upgraded to win10.
If i were to use the usb win10 installer to "repair installation" does the version of the iso downloaded via the media creation tool matter?

There is three options:
Windows 10
Windows 10 Home
Windows 10 N

Also is there a step by step instead of using rufus as I want to try an alternative method of creating a usb win 10 installer. Preferably with more compatibility.

System is a asus sabertooth 990 (r2?) with AMD phenom X 6.

Also is there any other software I can load onto the usb that can repair the bootloader easily?
That would be the ideal alternative. Thanks

 

black screen on boot after installing drivers for radeon x600pro

Hi Dan, i checked the power cord as you said, but it doesn´t seem to solve the problem. And it works just fine to boot with the card without the drivers installed but even with the latest drivers from the net the screen goes black on startup after the driver installation.

 

windows 10 can't boot, black screen.

Hello,

• What is the make and model of you system?
• Do you receive any exact error message?

There can be many reasons for booting to a black screen. These screens may appear with or without the mouse pointer. The main causes observed are:

• 
  The video output is being sent to an unexpected port
  
• Problems with the driver for your display adapter

I suggest you to refer the below link and follow the suggestions provided by Sharath Srinivasa on August 7, 2015 and see if this helps in resolving the issue.

Black screen after upgrading to Windows 10

If the issue still persists, perform Startup Repair using Windows 10 bootable DVD or USB drive and check if that helps. Initiating repair from DVD may have different results.

Startup Repair is a Windows recovery tool that can fix certain system problems that might prevent Windows from starting. Startup Repair scans your computer for the problem and then tries to fix it so your computer can start correctly.

Startup Repair is one of the recovery tools in the System Recovery Options menu. This set of tools is located on your computer's hard disk and on the Windows installation disc.

If you don’t have the bootable DVD or USB drive, please refer to the steps in the article given below to create one and then follow the steps given below.

Create installation media for Windows 10

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Once you have made the bootable USB or DVD drive, please follow the steps.

• 
  Insert the installation DVD or USB
  and boot Windows 10 from it.
  
• 
  In the ‘Windows setup’
  page, select the ‘language to install’, ‘Time and currency format’ and the ‘keyboard or input method’ and click on ‘next’.
  
• 
  Click on ‘Repair your computer’ and select
  ‘Troubleshoot’.
  
• 
  Click on ‘Advanced options’ and select
  ‘Startup Repair'
  and select the operating system.
  

You might also require to change the boot priority in BIOS in order to allow the computer to boot from DVD.

Note:
Modifying BIOS/ complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) settings incorrectly can cause serious problems that may prevent your computer from booting properly. Microsoft cannot guarantee that any problems resulting from the configuring of
BIOS/CMOS settings

Keep us posted with the status of black screen issue to assist you further.

Thank you.