automatic updates killed my laptop, now only black screen !?

[greenacc]

Dell laptop was working fine until a few days ago. It installed a few automatic updates on last shutdown, then next day we turn it on and it just goes to a black screen ?
Tried doing the self test by pressing f2 but it finds no fault ....

Any ideas ?

 

[Pollushon]

Try booting in Safe Mode to see if it's OS or hardware related. If it boots in Safe mode then I'd just system restore it to pre update condition and have another crack.

 

[greenacc]

Yeah tried that too, no joy .... what does that mean?

 

[Pollushon]

You mean Safe Mode and restore?

 

[Bourbonated]

Yeah tried that too, no joy .... what does that mean?

Had a couple of these come into my business. My first step is to try and roll back the update. This is done by booting into safemode (With Command Prompt) and entering the following command

"DISM.exe / image: C: \ [Windows path]/ cleanup-image / revertpendingact" without the quotations.

Let me know how you go.

 

[greenacc]

Tried to get into safe mode but cant , makes no difference.
Tried f2, f5, f8, and f12. No safe mode options anywhere ! The other day i saw the options for safe mode , there were 3 options, one was the command prompt one you mentioned so i tried all 3 and made nodifference. There was no place to type prompts either.

 

[Bourbonated]

You may be able to attempt the command from a system restore dialogue. Do you have access to a Windows 7 CD?

 

[Pollushon]

Do you get a post screen on boot, like a Dell screen, memory count or DMI? Does it have any picture/vid?

 

[greenacc]

Ok on start up i get the dell screen with a little bar graph on the bottom, then a resuming windows screen with a flashy bar on the bottom then the blqck screen of death ....
Will check what cds i have that came with this dell.

 

[Pollushon]

That's a good sign at least you know you can get picture. System resume you say? Sounds like something muffed up and the system hibernated before the updates completed. Interrupting updates usually has pretty dire consequences, i.e. what you're experiencing.

If you put in your Windows install disk and boot from that you should be able to run a live disk session. From there you can try a start up repair, but if it were me I'd run a system restore. There should have been one made right before the updates.