This is the best I can come up with: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314503

My computer just wont load i have vista hp and when i restart my computer it just stays black before the login screen and doesnt load. i have tryed everything and nothing works not even the original vista install disc. what do i do?

After you get the blank screen, ( After logging in. )

Press either Ctrl+Shift+Esc, or Ctrl+Alt+Delete.

Once you do that, the task manager should open up.

Once open, go to processes and look for Explorer.exe, You might not find it, Because sometimes apparently Vista forgets to start it.

If it is there, Right click it, and End Process.

Once done, ( Follow this step if it isnt there also. )

Go to the Applications tab, and click 'New Task...'

Type in Explorer.exe

This should force the GUI to load, and you shouldnt have any problems from there...

If your computer is new, I'd suggest getting the new Drivers also, as this may reduce the number of times you'll have to do this.

- V

I am having some similar problems.Initially I was not getting any connection from the cpu to the monitor quite a lot of times.Then it showd "bluee screen of death"symptoms,after startup,hanging badly and then the BSOD symptom.Now sometimes a black screen is shown after startup and everything hangs or boot screen hangs by itself or sometimes while booting my windows the screen hangs and stucks up there.Also during boot,the functional keys are not working.So i cannot check the hard disk.I have a dual boot system with suse and windows xp,where in suse by itself again some other problems are there like lan port disables by itself if suse is booted and even after reboot with windows,it doesnot work.
Is it any problem with the RAM?please help.urgent.I have work to do urgently in my computer.

I'm having the same issue and although I'm not sure of the cause, I've found a solution that has worked so far. This all started when I noticed that my machine would not shut down properly. I'd do a shut down and walk out of the room and come back hours later only to find that the machine is still showing the shutting down prompt or the screen is black but machine still "running". So I do a hard reboot and run into the same black screen after boot like the rest of you. One thing I noticed, after holding in the power button to shut down, is that the activity led where my Ethernet port is, is still lit up and flashing fast like there is activity. Machine shutdown and obviously PS plugged in. I'm not for sure if that is normal because I've just never paid attention to it. Well, I decided that to first, pull the plug on the power supply and second, hit the power button once. This is the kind of procedure that I've been instructed to do in the past on a CMOS reset. I'm thinking that pushing in the button after the PS is unplugged discharges the MB. Anyways, I plug the PS back in, LED on the Ethernet port is now off, and boom my pc boots like normal. I don't know if this will help you guys out but hell give it a shot.

I'm having the same problem, my screen goes black after windows load. I can't log in but I can see the curser. Any suggestions please help.

I also experienced this kind of problem. the first time it happened i didn't really know what to do. so i kept turning my computer on and off, but it still didn't do anything... so i just did the system recovery thingy and it actually work until now. i tried doing a system recovery again but for some reason it didn't budge, but it said something about my files being corrupt..which i have no clue what to do????

I've been searching for solutions for this issue as well. This is a spywar problem, Not a computer hardware problem.

This has now happened to two different notebook computers of mine within the last month making me very suspicious that malignant software is involved. Both have been with Windows Vista.

Each time it starts with the computer being unable to shut down. After a hard reboot it seems normal and asks you to log into Windows but once you do - black screen with a cursor.

This sounds exactly like what is described above except that control-alt-delete doesn't work. No key combinations work. The only thing I've found that has worked has been to restart the computer in safe mode with command prompt. At the command prompt run explorer.exe which loads a basic form of windows. From there do system restore. Unfortunately, even this was only partially successful on the first computer. It still runs VERY slow and seemed to have a lot of problems accessing the internet. I just did it again on the second computer. Hopefully it will work better (it is my main computer!).