Another "Black Screen - White Cursor" problem

Edit note: this post was split from This thread where Ben was working with a user who appears to have left us without any mention of his success or lack of it. Newt

Hi

I was reading your solution to a black screen and white cursor. I have a customer who has a similar problem. I notice dec 16 the system was updated with IE6 sp1 and of course files were updated. He states that he was messing with the icons and fonts since he is going blind. He did not like it so he restored back to earlier date. When he rebooted he got the black screen and white cursor. No modes work using the f8 key. I have research the web extensively and your solution seems to be the closest. I just had a couple questions. The directories when I go into them on the day in question they all have spuninst/spuninst.txt which states copy of files from $ntuninstallkb834707 to c:\windows\ what I do not see is the files per your example that were installed. I see where files were copied from uninstall to c:\windows only except for one which has reg00001 thru 10 and then spuninst.txt. It seems like the files were already copy from $ntuninstall to c:\windows\whereever. Am I reading this correct?


Thanks

Mike

Mike

 

Hi didineedthat and welcome to the forum.

I have split your post off into a new thread. We have lots better luck if each issue has it's own thread - less chance of confusion that way and it will get better attention this way.

 

He did not like it so he restored back to earlier date.

What did he do to 'restore'?

Those directories that dont have anything but an spuninst directory are for old hotfixes that no longer apply. If you look at an XPSP2 machine thats been in service for a while, youll see a lot of SP1 hotfixes that are in this state. The SP installer nukes the files so you dont accidentally get into trouble by restoring old files but leaves evidence to prove the fix is on the machine.


Are you able to get in to a command prompt only safe mode?

My guess is that the 'restore' was poorly done, and left files horribly mismatched, or missing altogether. My focus at this point would be to get SFC /scannow run, or XPSP2 installed to get the machine back on its feet with good files. This may not be possible without some major kludging or a good backup.

There is a scary way to fix this, here be dragons. If your kung fu is not strong, skip this next part. You have been warned.
[hr]the BIG copy disaster process.[/hr]
make a parellel install of XP to \win2, bring it up to the same patch level as your existing install. Then xcopy all the \win2\system32 files by extension to \windows\system32. Do just DLLs and see if that works. then go for them all. You can also go for a very surgical approach, using comparisions to figure out whats missing or mismatched.

This is obviously filled with peril. You quite possibly will hose his machine if this is done wrong or you dont hit the correct patch/service pack level of the target. I have often used this process to recover from a backup restore gone wrong and in a 'no boot' situation.
[hr]

Elsewise, you should probably just try a repair install and hope for the best.[/hr]