BleepingComputer.com: Windows fails to start

Hey,

My girlfriend and I were playing a game together, and all of a sudden my laptop she was using was hit with a blue screen of death. When it restarted, it failed to start and came up with the menu that says Windows failed to start, which may be because of a recent hardware or software change.

It recommends to start Windows repair, but when I do, it just sits at a black screen. Now, the mouse is visible on the screen. But, it doesn't do anything. I'm not sure if it's loading and taking forever or what, but I am really antsy about this.

Anyone have any ideas on what could have caused it, or more importantly, how to fix it? Thanks in advance!

Edit As a few updates, here are things I have done and the results:

- tried booting in safe mode, but was greeted by a blue screen of death that lasted for about half a second and the computer restarts
- tried booting from CD-ROM, and it restarts to square one
- tried booting from last known good configuration, and Windows just doesn't leave the loading screen with the sliding green bar.

Hi DPtheGod,

When you run from the disc, and it restarts to square one for you, did you continue? You should, in most cases be able to continue from that point and change the boot sequence in order to start from the disc. Once you do that, you should be able to “repair” from the resulting Vista menu. It will look like it’s sending you in an endless loop, but you should see “Windows found problems with your computer’s startup options. Do you want to apply repairs and restart your computer?” When you see that, click repair and restart.

After doing that, it will spit you back out to the beginning again. From the menu, choose “Start Windows normally” and things should work.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any other questions, or you can always get in touch with Microsoft tech support here: http://support.microsoft.com/ph/11732#tab0.

Cheers,