In the last couple of months, Robert and I have had several computers calls where the computer screen is black and the computer won’t finish booting up. In one case the hard drive light was blinking rapidly but the computer still wouldn’t load which seemed to indicate that the hard drive had gone bad.
I also had another computer with similar symptoms. In both cases when we brought the computers back to the office to work on them, they started right up as if there was no problem.
This may have been caused by a Windows update that hasn’t been able to fully complete, possibly from a slow internet connection or the update has stalled for some unknown reason.
We have suggested in the past to leave the computer sit for awhile and see if the update will finish. In one instance the client left his sit for several days with no change. We are now suggesting that if your computer seems to be stuck in this manner and won’t load, but your hard drive light is on, go ahead and shut the computer down and restart it. You will need to hold your computer’s power button down until your computer powers off. Wait until it has completely shut down – no lights or sounds coming from your computer. Then you can try to restart. In many cases this will allow the windows update to continue or finish up and then your computer will start up.
If in doubt, as always, give me a call.
