My laptop boots up to nothing but a black screen. Can you help?

F8 on start up and tell it to boot to last known working sector,
failing that tell it to start in safe mode

k, i’ll try that

i have had to sort my brothers laptop a few times that has done this.
my desktop messed up once kept rebooting for no reason turned out i had a virus.
what led to the laptop not booting up correctly

Get a MacBook, they break less

and where is the proof that Macs break less ?
essieness may not want to spend a fortune on a new system,and may have the same views on Macs.

Yeah, I’m not really on the market for a new laptop. If I was, I might get a Mac, but I can’t afford one right now. I’m happy with my HP… when it works,LOL.

if pressing and holding F8 on start-up doesnt work then come back and say what you see.
will help further

@sandystrachan Thanks. Give me a little bit.

it could be overheated,could be a problem with the motherboard if thats the case i think it may be time for replacement but plenty to try before it comes to that

Ok, I pressed F8 and chose “last known good startup” and now it says it’s “checking the disk”.

checking the hard drive because of an unknown command/corrupt partition thats a good thing

did that help any ?

put Ubuntu or Hackintosh on it :]
ANYTHING but Windows

@sandystrachan: This may not prove that Macs break less (though I have witnessed my PC-using colleagues experience much more downtime than me in the same work environment) but Apple consistently ranks highest in customer satisfaction. 2005, 2008, 2009, for example.

Nah, I’ve got a friend looking at it. She’s going to scan my hard drive and make sure it’s ok. She has a Vista installation disk, so she’ll just reinstall it if nothing else works. Thanks for your help though!

I hate my mac, and everyone that I know who has owned a mac has had a HD die. It has happened to me too. So no stay with your HP, do your best to keep it running. I also live my PC. It has done the same thing that your talking about except I let it sit with the black screen and about a half hour latter it started up and was fine. Have you tried calling customer support?

update: I got a brand new hard drive… so I’m good now.