My sisters dell laptop has vista home basic on it, she brought it over for me to look at because when she boots up, enters her password it says welcome and appears to go to the desktop with a moveable pointer arrow and everything yet there is nothing at all there, can't right click, no start menu or icons etc.

Tried rebooting and starting in safe mode but did exact same thing, we get nothing on the desktop just a moveable pointer arrow.

Not even sure where to start on this one any advice?

Try hitting ctrl + alt + delete & then choose "Start Task Manager". Click on file, and then "new task (run)". Now type in explorer.exe and if that now brings up your task bar, start menu, etc I would try to revert to a system restore point.

Once bootup is done and I enter the password to get in, it appears to be starting but just stalls at a off purplish background (completely empty) with a mouse pointer that I can control but nothing to click on.

I did try shift 5x and got the "do you want to turn on sticky keys?" prompt, but cntaltdel does nothing that i can see and I have no task bar startmenu or anything like that to work with, right click on mouse does nothing either

I emailed her at work and asked if she made the recovery disc for dell or not God I hope she did, cuz im 99.99999% sure Dell didn't ship one with the unit, so she was probably prompted on first day for her to stick a disc in and make a recovery disc set...

Its just so weird how it boots, lets me enter a password, appears to be going to the main desktop (all at good speed) then just sorta turns to toast with a purplish background and only the mouse pointer.

I also restarted in safe mode and it does the exact same thing except the screen in that background wise is all black and says safe mode on all 4 corners, and I did try the cntaltdel (nogo) and did try the shift 5x and did again get the sticky key prompt so I think its still alive just some startup file got corrupted somehow.

Hoping she replies with a disc was made or shell have to call dell and order one if they even do that, the laptop is less than a yr old too so i doubt the drive failed or anything, no funky noises, seems to boot (at least to that point) quickly etc.

Will keep diggin in google and checkin back tho in case i find something that works till i hear from her on that disc.

Originally Posted by townsbg

Try hitting ctrl + alt + delete & then choose "Start Task Manager". Click on file, and then "new task (run)". Now type in explorer.exe and if that now brings up your task bar, start menu, etc I would try to revert to a system restore point.

What about this??? If the installation files are one the drive then they should be accessible without a disk.

Forgive my novice skill set - but how would I access them if i cant get windows to do anything, cnt alt del does nothing for me, the screen is not black and i do have control of the mouse pointer but no right click access to anything, no start or task bar no cntaltdel popup, altho if i hit shift 5x i get the do you want to turn on sticky keys popup, thats about all i get here a basic purple background and a moveable mouse after i sign in with the user password.

I tried reboot holding down F11 (my wifes laptop is an hp and i remember her on disc files were accessed this way) but nothing happened, tried F8 on boot and had an option of repair so i did that but it said windows found no problems.

I am trying the system restore function at this time will report what if anything that does.

well from that F8 screen i saw repair windows, hit that and got to a menu of system recovery options, tried startup repair, went thru the process said windows found no problems, tried restart same problems.

F8 again this time choosing system restore, went to the last known one 6/18/09 went thru system restore process and it sayd system restore completed successfully, please restart - after the sign in password let pc sit a good 10 mins thinking it may take a bit to start that first time from restoring, but nothing just same blank purple background and moveable mouse with no ability to cntaltdel etc,

Gonna try system restore from an earlier point and see what if anything that does i guess...

second restore point (earlier point of 4/20/09) finished said successful yet upon reboot and password i go to a blank purple screen with the pointer again no ability to cntaltdel, no taskbar, no icons, no right click options...


Kinda stuck at this point she still has not answered my email or call on if she made a dell/vista restore disc but i know theres stuff on there (pics docs etc) she'd rather not lose by having me hit the option of dell factory image restore, as I assume that would wipe all out to a day one computer?

The only other options i see by hitting f8 repair are

Startup Repair (did that 3x says no problems found)

System Restore (tried 2 different ones both say finished successfully yet still not giving me the desktop)

Windows pc restore (restore from a backup image which i dont have beyond those system restore points)

Windows mem diag tool (didnt run it but heck might try for fun)

Command Prompt (i get the basics of C/DIR etc and how to navigate to a certain point but not really sure what if any i can do here to try and fix this problem since restore and startup repair didnt work).

Last option shows dell factory image restore and says restores to factory condition but im assuming you also lose your personal data (pics, music, documents) so i didnt try that option yet without talking to her first as i know she mentioned having files on here she didnt want to lose.

To me anything i dont wanna lose I backup on external hd, thumbdrive, dvd data discs etc, but she will learn maybe the hard way as I did years ago hehe

Thanks for any input as to what to try next,

Bill

One thing I can think of to try from the command prompt is to try to type in sfc /scannow. Another option is to take it to a repair shop. If the computer isn't under warranty and you feel that you are really good with computers you could take out the hard drive and slave it to a desktop to recover the files. Afterwards you could do a reinstall. If sfc doesn't work the only other thing I can think of is to just reinstall. Some manufacturer restores just rewrite windows and remove your programs but leave your personal files. Such reinstalls might not get rid of the problem though.