Need help fixing a problem

[[Judge]Iceman]

My friend's laptop is having a problem.

Turn it on, get the options for boot order, recovery, etc.
Moves on to the Vista loading bar
Then goes to a black screen with only the mouse showing. The mouse is moving, but i get nothing else.

I tried booting up in safe mode, same situation.

Any ideas as to what the problem may be? And more importantly, how to fix it.

*EDIT* Apparently it will go into screen saver mode and display that just fine. As I just found that out.

 

[oldskool]

Is that a new install, or has it been running Vista ok until as of late ? What is your friend's laptop's specs, e.g., which service pack, hardware specs, etc ?

 

[KSoD]

Does he hear the sounds like it is getting to the login screen or anything like that? Could be the dreaded KSoD (Black Screen of Death) that has started to become more of a issue with Vista installs lately.

 

[[Judge]Iceman]

This is a store bought, obviously, but I'm pretty sure it has SP1 on it.

HP Pavilion dv6700 (Core 2 Duo T8300 processor 2.4GHz; 2GB RAM)

It has been running fine ever since she bought it. One day working, next day nadda.

As far as sounds go, there are no startup sounds. I'm pretty sure there isn't a log on screen as she's the only one using it.

The HDD activity light goes pretty steady and then trails off after about 30 seconds. Like it's loading everything but it's not displaying it.

I was asking around and I was told that Microsoft offers a Vista recovery. I got that as an ISO and was thinking about trying that. Others have said that it fixed the same problem for them.

 

[KSoD]

HP should have a factory reset on there. They use Recovery Partitions instead of media now. So you might be able to get that up by hitting F12 after the BIOS Screen goes off and getting the boot menu to get the Recovery Partition to boot up and restore it to factory.

After you restore it use this tool to remove some of the factory installed software. Then make sure to update it to SP2.