Black screen with cursor after successful Windows 10 upgrade

Question

Last night I tried to upgrade my Lenovo G580 laptop from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 using the icon/reserve feature in the corner.

It completed 100%, rebooted, asked me whether to use Express Settings regarding their data collection, rebooted and presented me with a login screen.

I entered my password and clicked Enter and it gave me a black screen with a cursor. I left it for over half an hour and still nothing.

I tried pressing all key combinations. Ctrl Alt Del worked and brings up the menu, but clicking Task Manager wouldn't do anything. I was able to log out or lock the screen and could re-enter my password but still black screen. I tried plugging into external monitors and also using the Windows Key + Enter for narrator and Windows Key + P for projection settings but nothing.

I did a proper restart from the power menu, still nothing. I tried a shut down. Tried to cold boot by pressing and holding the power button, followed by a warm boot. I also tried removing the battery.

I rebooted into the advanced startup settings and tried low resolution mode, but still the same issue. Then I tried the thing about unsigned drivers. Then tried safe mode (normal), same issue. Nothing. I tried safe mode with networking, nothing. (The network side panel would show as well). I tried safe mode with command prompt and the command prompt did show.

I tried opening task manager, which did flash up the small task manager window for a second and then it vanished. Control panel won't open. None of the control panel applets. Regedit did open. "mmc" management centre did open with no snap-ins. I manually added device manager, disk management, services, and event log.

Disk management looked normal. Services seemed normal. Device manager looked okay too except a warning sign on the laptop screen (I think this is caused by safe mode). I uninstalled the drivers for webcam, bluetooth and graphics. Event log showed an error to do with a scheduled task for the browser chooser task, so I navigated in CMD and deleted this task, but on reboot still nothing.

At this point I was worried of losing my data so I went into recovery mode and clicked "Rollback to previous build" which gave me Windows 8.1 back just how I left it.

At this point I am unsure whether to attempt it again or wait. Is it possible to delete the downloaded Windows 10 and get it to re-download just in case it was corrupt or something?

My laptop is a Core i3 with Intel 4000 graphics. 8GB of RAM and a Crucial MX100 512GB SSD (replaced the original hard drive with this SSD).

I am in the UK and the laptop came with Windows 8, I got the upgrade to Windows 8.1 which went smoothly.

Thanks

Solution

I found the answer. It was because I had installed OldNewExplorer before to modify which folders display in "My Computer" and I think it was to bring back libraries in Win 8.1.

People have reported problems when explorer has been modified by things such as ClassicShell etc. Anything that modifies explorer may break the Win10 upgrade.

I uninstalled OldNewExplorer and the upgrade completed successfully.

Comments

[Ramhound]

This is likely connected to your GPU. Are you able to boot into safe mode, download the driver from another machine, and attempt to install the production drivers ( if that even works ) otherwise uninstall the drivers and then try booting

[djtwigg]

I booted into safe mode but I just had a black screen. The only thing that worked was safe mode with command prompt. I tried to uninstall the drivers and rebooted and still black screen. In safe mode I had no explorer or ability to run any programs, except regedit and mmc management console.

[Ramhound]

I missed the part where you are back to Windows 8.1. My best advice wait about 10 days for Intel to release better drivers. You should also perform a backup.

[Dave]

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because the poster explains in this post that they have reverted the OS back, meaning, the issue no longer exists superuser.com/questions/948166/…

[djtwigg]

@Dave I understand. I did state in the post above that I managed to revert back to Windows 8.1, but I want to upgrade to Windows 10. This post outlines the issues I had and I want to know how I can avoid it if I try to upgrade again.

[Dave]

That's not how this Q&A site works sadly. If you feel the above is relevant, then copy it into your new post and then delete this question. This is a Q&A site, meaning, there has to be an A for each Q (well, that's the goal) :) As it is, we can't answer this as it's no longer an issue

[djtwigg]

Ok no problem sorry about that. I'll do this now.

[Pedro]

This answer looks promising tenforums.com/general-discussion/… . I experience this issue on and off since I installed Win 10 from scratch and sadly it is not happening to me right now. I have more than 10 reputation but superuser still does not let me add an answer, strange. In short, Win10 thinks you have an extra monitor and you are seeing the secondary one. You need to hit ctrl to place the cursor on the password field, then enter your password and hit enter.

[djtwigg]

I tried uninstalling my graphics drivers but to no avail.

[djtwigg]

I tried uninstalling my graphics drivers but to no avail.

[Pedro]

Same thing happens to me. Usually it is about 20 mins. But last night I waited it for 1 hour... well, rebooted rebooted and desperately rebooted and tried to access it for an hour an a half. Maybe I never waited for the full 20 mins. This problem sucks and I have no idea what it is. I don't have any nVidia drivers on my machine. I also don't have OldNewExplorer instaled.

[Pedro]

One good workaround to mention is that RDP works. So if you have that enabled you can still access your computer from another computer.