Windows Vista VISTA Black Screen of Death...

I've read some on the Internet about this, but the solutions are sparce, and inconsistant, so I thought I'd bring it up here...

Situation: I was given a Vista laptop by a family friend, "here, fix this... ". I was able to detect (I think) two different operating systems in two different partitions.

Observation: Machine booted, and ran chkdsk for ~4 hours, spitting out 67,000 errors about "Replace an Invalid Security ID With the Default Security ID ". Upon boot, the machine boots with no error messages, and gives me a black desktop with a movable mouse-pointer. Nothing else. No icons, no menu-bar, no nothing. Ctrl-Alt-Del does not bring up Task Manager. ctrl-C, ctrl-Z etc etc do nothing. Pressing the power button does not shut the system down.

What I've read: Apparently all the security descriptors have been deleted (or replaced), and now no user has privs to any file in the OS; thus no shell loads during boot etc etc. This sometimes arises when files are dragged between two different O/S's on the same computer (Vista & XP have different methods of doing security descriptors...)

What I've done: Booted from Vista setup disk and:

1.) icacls * /grant administrators:F /T
ran for a long time & completed successfully. No change.

2.) icals * /grant SYSTEM:F / T
Completed successfully. No change.

3.) NOT YET: I was going to grand read-only to the 'Users' group, because the user who will auto-login needs to run the shell.


Question: any other words of wisdom for a straight-forward recovery?

 

Run CHKDSK again at least one more time. Let it run for however long it likes. I had a Windows XP system finally repaired after the third try the other day.

Just had a though. Can you take the HDD out and connect it into another Vista (desktop) computer? Run CHKDSK (Error Checking) on it from there, that might set the correct "Default Security ID ".

Are you sure it is the Security IDs? When you reach the desktop, startup programs will take control. If the Resolution was set outside parameters, it could cause a black screen. Have you tried booting into Safe Mode or "low resolution" mode?

If the Security IDs were reset by running CHKDSK from a different OS (like Windows XP), now you might have two problems instead of one. you might have to take the HDD out and run CHKDSK from a Vista system, then try booting into Safe Mode.

Matt

 

I give up... I've tried all iterations of this command, and it still boots to a mouse-pointer and a black screen. no ctrl-alt-del, no menu-bar, no right-click. My time now will be best spent rebuilding....