It’s nerve-wracking when your HP laptop stucks at black screen along with a mouse cursor. The problem, which is classified as boot failure type of error, is caused due to one or more following reasons. When it occurs, your laptop fails to go beyond the black screen and load the user log-in screen.
If you could manage to boot Windows after a reboot..
There are certain situations when missing entries in your registry and registry corruption causes this problem. Try running a registry scan to identify if there are any such issues. Estimated Download Time: 10 SecondsDownload the Diagnostic
Boot in Safe Mode
Safe Mode is a mechanism used to diagnose serious issue at the Windows boot-time interval. When your laptop fails to boot normally, you might want to load it with basic drivers with all advanced features and third party apps disabled.
1. Press and hold the Power key for half a minute. If you’re fortunate enough to boot after a system reboot, you might want to try the Safe Mode feature as earliest as possible.
2. Click Start, select Settings.
3. Click Update & Security icon.
4. Click Recovery tab.
5. Under Advanced Startup, click Restart Now.
6. Your computer will now restart.
7. Select Safe Mode with Networking option; press ENTER.
Configure Registry Settings
Make sure that the values of Shell and UserInit strings in the Registry are set appropriately. Your system might be infected with a virus that changed these settings.
1. Boot into the Safe Mode.
2. Press Windows Key + X; select Run option.
3. Type RegEdit and click OK.
4. Locate the following subkey:
- HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\WinLogOn
5. Double click Shell string, and set Explorer.exe as the String Value.
6. Double click UserInit string and set the following path as String Value:
- C:\Windows\system32\userinit.exe,
7. Exit Registry Editor, and then restart your HP laptop.
Scan for Virus
Even if you have an active Antivirus installed, there is possibility that a virus or malware has infected your laptop. Uninstall your existing Antivirus, grab a powerful Antivirus, update virus definitions, and full scan all the drives.
If you could not boot at all…
Use System Repair Disc to Perform System Reset/ Restore
The System Repair Disc contains a set of troubleshooting utilities designed to boot your laptop after a critical system issue/ boot failure.
1. Insert the Windows System Repair disc or Recovery Drive into your DVD Drive.
2. Reboot your laptop.
3. Press F2 or Delete key repeatedly until the BIOS Setup screen is displayed.
4. Set the DVD ROM as the First Boot Device; and Hard Disk as the Second Boot Device.
5. Go to Exit > Save changes and exit.
6. Your system will restart, and prompt you to press any key to boot from the inserted disc. Press ENTER or Space Bar.
Option # 1: Reset your PC
PC Reset deletes everything – your Windows Store apps, apps downloaded from the Internet. If you upgraded from Windows 8/ 8.1 to Windows 10, it’ll revert you to that earlier version. If you got the HP laptop with Windows 10 pre-installed with a set of manufacturer installed apps, it’ll be restored to the same state.
7. In the Troubleshoot page, click Reset your PC icon.
8. Follow the on-screen instructions.
Option # 2: Use System Restore
System Restore rollbacks your laptop to an earlier point of time. There are two choices – restore your laptop to the recommended system restore point created by Windows; or use any user-created restore point.
7. In the Troubleshoot page, click Advanced Options icon.
8. Click System Restore.
Perform Startup Repair Using Windows Installation Disc
Windows 10 operating system installation disc holds advanced troubleshooting and repair options. All you need to do is to boot from the disc, and use the Startup Repair option.
1. Insert the Windows 10 installation media, configure the Boot Sequence appropriately. (Refer Steps # 2-6 under Use System Repair Disc section)
2. Click Repair my computer in the Welcome page of your setup.
3. Click the Troubleshooting icon > Startup Repair.
