I am fixing a Windows 7 machine for my customer, the PC booted to an all-black screen with a mouse cursor that could be moved around after the window 7 icon screen. There are no icons, toolbars, etc. Ctrl+Alt+Del does not bring up the Task Manager. Booting to Safe Mode renders the same result. Tried Repairs with the installation DVD but did not fix the problem. I have tried to run a software called SPINRITE based on FreeDOS to check the HDD errors but it froze at the beginning of loading FreeDOS. I have also run the memory test which is passed but very slow. Then I Planed to backup data and reload a fresh copy of windows. After I backed up data to another PC by direct connecting the HDD with a USB adapter, I restarted the machine, it just booted into windows 7 perfectly. The only thing I have done is disconnect the HDD and connect it again.
So my questions are:
what will be the cause of this black screen with a movable mouse cursor only? Software? Hardware?
What did fix this problem?
Is that possible that there are some HDD errors and these errors are fixed by plugging the HDD into another PC running WIN XP?
Is that also possible that there are some hardware issues which causes this problem and the freezing problem of loading FreeDOS?
