Black desktop with no icons, toolbar. But have CMD windows open with nothing in it.

[jeanmat]

First I restarted my PC because my second monitor out of my two monitors became pixelated. 

After the restart, I entered my password (everything looked fine) and then when sent to the desktop, I was treated with what I joined to this post. Let it sit for a while just to see if it fixed itself but nothing. So I restarted it again through the "ctrl+alt+delete" window. Same story. I opened the performance monitor to see if something was out of the ordinary but nothing I could see. So I opened file explorer by clicking on one of the process and selecting "Open file location" and went to the "base files(?)" where you see your drives. Weirdly enough, my second and third drives looked "disabled"?(photo attached). When I try to open them, I get "D:\ is not accessible. Access is denied". Same thing for my E drive.

 

So I started by running SFC in the CMD and got some invalid/corrupted files and I was sorta expecting it. Anw, they were successfully fixed. I restarted my PC. Logged back in. Still the same result as in the beginning. Read somewhere it might be bad RAM. So Removed all my RAM and tried all slots with one stick to see if it was a bad slot and exchanging the RAM stick with an other and checking all slots. Same result. Then I disconnected the drives that seemed "disabled" as I read somewhere that might be the issue. Same result. I've also updated the 

 

I don't know what else to do at this point...

 

Specs:

CPU: i7-4790

RAM: 16GB (DDR3)

GPU: GTX 1070

Boot drive: Kingston "SUV400S37240G"

 

Also, unable to download anything such as a fresh new BIOS as it seems my internet is not working...

[jeanmat]

Side note, first pic is the first monitor and second pic is my second. I tried running on only one monitor and it gave the same result. Fixed my internet as it was my VPN not connecting. I'm able to browse the internet now.

[jeanmat]

Now updating graphics driver. Didn't fix it. I also tried changing the SATA cables from my "broken drives" with my 1TB one and they still don't work. Also changed SATA ports for the broken drives and they still don't work.

[Robert J.]

Is it booting into safe mode?

[dDave64]

Only time I recall seeing this in the past it was one of 2 things.

 

1. Corrupted user profile - solution would be to back up data on another computer and wipe out the profile from separate local admin account.

 

2. Missing/corrupted entries in boot log - I forget where this is. A coworker showed me. I think it’s technically stored in System 32 and some aspects of it can be edited via msconfig. Not 100% sure where this is located though. Fix would be to repair windows install with install media or reinstall Windows.

[jeanmat]

54 minutes ago, Robert J. said:

Is it booting into safe mode?

Regular boot sequence and dunno how to launch in safe mode without Window's program. I even tried running cmd commands to initiate a windows update (which I don't really do) but the command would do nothing. Not giving me a syntax error or anything like that; just nothing.

[jeanmat]

38 minutes ago, dDave64 said:

Only time I recall seeing this in the past it was one of 2 things.

 

1. Corrupted user profile - solution would be to back up data on another computer and wipe out the profile from separate local admin account.

 

2. Missing/corrupted entries in boot log - I forget where this is. A coworker showed me. I think it’s technically stored in System 32 and some aspects of it can be edited via msconfig. Not 100% sure where this is located though. Fix would be to repair windows install with install media or reinstall Windows.

I'll try this out asap tmr. That corrupted user things sounds like a possibility. My windows as always been a bit f*cky at times. I got no clue on how to reinstall windows and dunno if you can export the license so I hope it's not a pain in the ass to do... Maybe yarrrrr it and get a copy that way if needs be idk.

 

But what's really puzzling me is the two drives not being recognized. Fortunately for me there's only my steam library on the D drive and my totally legit TV series on my E drive so if I have to reformat I'm fine with it. I got the net for it.

 

Thx for your help!

[dDave64]

14 minutes ago, jeanmat said:

I'll try this out asap tmr. That corrupted user things sounds like a possibility. My windows as always been a bit f*cky at times. I got no clue on how to reinstall windows and dunno if you can export the license so I hope it's not a pain in the ass to do... Maybe yarrrrr it and get a copy that way if needs be idk.

 

But what's really puzzling me is the two drives not being recognized. Fortunately for me there's only my steam library on the D drive and my totally legit TV series on my E drive so if I have to reformat I'm fine with it. I got the net for it.

 

Thx for your help!

 

You need to get into the registry as an admin and delete a few entries if you want your profile to have the exact same name. A few entries in the registry will default to the old corrupted account of you use the same exact name. Otherwise, I would recommend changing your acct name slightly so you can skip this step. 

 

I wish I could help more but I literally don’t remember exactly which entries.

[dDave64]

20 minutes ago, jeanmat said:

I'll try this out asap tmr. That corrupted user things sounds like a possibility. My windows as always been a bit f*cky at times. I got no clue on how to reinstall windows and dunno if you can export the license so I hope it's not a pain in the ass to do... Maybe yarrrrr it and get a copy that way if needs be idk.

 

But what's really puzzling me is the two drives not being recognized. Fortunately for me there's only my steam library on the D drive and my totally legit TV series on my E drive so if I have to reformat I'm fine with it. I got the net for it.

 

Thx for your help!

 

You can get a Windows key finder and copy down the 25 character product key. Real easy. You should have this backed up anyway.

 

you can make a windows install usb quite easily. Microsoft will let you do this from their website with no trouble.

[dgsddfgdfhgs]

you want to secure all data backup first before messing with windows file (assume something corrupted)

boot with a ubuntu usb stick or put the drives as slave to a spare pc

 

or is it just explorer.exe not running, try run task manager > new task> explorer.exe

[jeanmat]

9 minutes ago, dgsddfgdfhgs said:

you want to secure all data backup first before messing with windows file (assume something corrupted)

boot with a ubuntu usb stick or put the drives as slave to a spare pc

 

or is it just explorer.exe not running, try run task manager > new task> explorer.exe

AHAHAHAHAHAHA. Got up from bed to try this since it was so quick. It worked. Just explore.exe not running. Thanks. I would give you a big ol' smooch if I could. No homo.