Windows 8.1 black screen but mouse cursor visible

[Mr. Analog]

So I updated my video driver today and BORK my laptop goes to a black screen (the mouse cursor is still visible and a monitor shaped icon sometimes appears in the bottom left but other than that utterly useless) the frustration for me right now is that there doesn't seem to be a way to get to Safe Mode (F8 does nothing!)

Anybody got any tips for this?

[Melbosa]

Its a known Windows Bug that Microsoft hasn't f-n fixed in over a year. I've been trying to find the solution forever!  Thought I had the fix a while back but a new Windows Update pooched the fix on me .

[Mr. Analog]

Dammit

[Darren Dirt]

Now I am seriously anxious about any new Windows Updates coming my way...

I tend to never touch my video card driver since I never play games and would effin cry if I had a Black Screen Of Nothing happen to me...

[Melbosa]

You eventually get logged in, just takes a long time!

[Mr. Analog]

Still trying here. I wish I had a recovery disc or so

Sent from my SM-T810 using Tapatalk

[Thorin]

I had something similar happen on my wife's HP Split x2.  On that particular device, you can press Esc during boot-up to get to a diagnostics menu.  Once in the menu, you can exit without doing anything and Windows magically fixes itself and boots up.

Although on the Split, most people thought it was caused by a bad sector on the hard drive corrupting the MBR, and going into the diagnostics menu told the Split to check its drive before the next bootup or something.

Interesting that Windows 8.1 has a black boot screen bug and haven't fixed it.

[Mr. Analog]

I'm freaking out, I don't want to haul two computers into the office tomorrow, not with snow

AUGH

[Thorin]

This seems to describe the same problem you're encountering: http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1981016/windows-black-screen-updates.html.

That also mentions that safe mode can be different keys depending on the laptop manufacturer. This is your work laptop? I'll go try rebooting mine in safe mode, see if it's a different key.

[Mr. Analog]

Yeah it's my work machine

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[Thorin]

Okay, I tried a bunch of things and did a bunch of reading.

http://www.digitalcitizen.life/5-ways-boot-safe-mode-windows-8-windows-81?page=0%2C1 describes different ways to boot into safe mode, but mentions that the old spam-F8 method doesn't work in Windows 8/8.1.  That led me to the next link.

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/b8/2012/05/22/designing-for-pcs-that-boot-faster-than-ever-before/ explains why F8 doesn't work anymore (Windows starts too fast to register a button push), and how to use menus built in to Windows to accomplish safe mode (yeah, but we can't get into Windows, you idiots!).  It also mentions that Windows will look for two seemingly-successful-but-ultimately-not boot ups in a row, but doesn't explain how to cause those.

So I tried restarting the computer by just holding the power button.  Went through that five times, Windows always booted.

So I started up the laptop, waited for everything to stop making spinning noises, then pulled the battery (after making sure the power adapter wasn't still plugged in).  Did that twice, and after the second time I put the battery back in, Windows went into a menu that would allow me to start in safe mode.

Once in this alternative startup, you want to use recovery tools and then get to the "Advanced Options" menu, I think it's called.  From there you can initiate safe mode, but our work machines have a wrinkle.

The rest of this is more sensitive info, so I'll PM you.

[Thorin]

Also, what the hell is wrong with these people at Microsoft?  Why not just look for a key that's being held down?  SO MUCH EASIER WHEN THE VIDEO DRIVERS ARE BORKED BY WINDOWS UPDATE.

Dunno if you guys followed the first link I posted, but it explains what causes this:

this problem is caused by a mixed set of drivers (different builds) for your graphics card. You can get this if windows updates your graphics card and you don't actually reboot before running the vendors graphics setup program. Basically, windows update attempts to install the graphics driver but it is in use so it puts it into a queue to be installed on the next reboot (not sleep). In the mean time, before you actually reboot or power cycle your machine you use the vendors update program that does not require a reboot. All is well until, some time later you reboot and windows sees that it has a update to install on the reboot and does it. Now you have a mixed build and your graphics card will not work correctly, Also, windows makes a backup copy of the drivers and puts them into its driver store for you and keeps putting it back on your system if the driver is deleted. (but it will work until you reboot again because the actual driver is not installed until the reboot)

bummer,
at this point you would go into control panel, disable the autoinstall of device drivers, uninstall the video driver,
reboot, and install with the vendors setup program and reboot. Then enter control panel and re-enable the autoinstall of the drivers again.

The second paragraph tells you what to do once you get into safe mode.

At least most of us have more than one internet-enabled device, so we can look up these kinds of problems on the internet when our main machine doesn't work anymore...

[Mr. Analog]

@%&# yeah!  I'm in safe mode right now.

THANK YOU

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[Thorin]

That is awesome to hear.  It was a learning journey for me as well, so when I (inevitably) hit this same problem I'll be searching our forums for this solution   Hopefully in safe mode you're able to fix the video driver problems.

[Mr. Analog]

Same here, it's currently attempting a repair, slow going

I don't know what I did to it, interestingly enough somehow nVidia drivers were installed but this laptop should have an AMD video card??

I don't know what's going on