After spending a full day on this, we (Your IT Pro and I) finally got it to boot by restoring the registry from a backup which windows keeps.
Boot into Windows Recovery command prompt and do the following:-
1. CD C:\Windows\System32\Config\RegBack
2. MD Backup (MD Is the command to Make a Directory)
3. Copy *.* Backup (copies all files in the folder RegBack to the Backup folder created in step 2)
4. Copy *.* .. (copies all file from the RegBack folder to the folder below, Config, overwriting them)
5. Reboot
Hopefully, this will allow your server to boot.
Updated 17/09/2016 and 14/12/2016: Updated the instructions for clarity.
Did not fix the problem, but thanks for the suggestion!
Sorry to hear that. Would of been good to know what OS your were using?
YES !!!!!
Thanks for the suggestion
My Server boot now without black screen !!!!
Thanks !
( sorry for my english im french )
Your very welcome. 🙂
THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! Worked perfectly! I too spent an entire day trying to fix this issue. Every other listed fix failed miserably. This one, worked the first time! MUCH APPRECIATED!
Hi Michael,
Your very welcome, yeah we spent some time looks for various fixes and then we tried this and it worked. I’m glad your server is up and running again.
Thanks,
Wayne
If you are ever anywhere near Seattle, I will buy you a beer my friend. Saved my ASS
Your welcome. Glad it helped. Thanks for the beer. 🙂
Wowwww i was just going Crazy since this morning .. Thank god got to see this and this fixed my issue …. Now i am very curious to understand why did my registry get corrupted . I am running 2008 R2 STD as a Domain COntroller
Indeed, if you do find out why this happens then please contact me and I’ll update the post. I’m glad this worked for you. 🙂
Hi, I’m on server 2008 R2 and when I use the command, copy *.* backup under the Regback folder, it says the system cannot find the file specified. Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Steve
Hi Steve,
have you done a DIR ? is there anything within the folder?
Thanks
Wayne
Thank you very much mate. its worked !
Your very welcome!
I followed these instructions verbatim and it did not fix the issue. It also would not let me get past the keyboard option in system repair without giving a “parameter is incorrect” dialog box.
May have worked for some but for me it left me in a worse spot than where I was.
Sorry to hear that Daniel.
Sounds like you had a different issue maybe? Hope you get it sorted.
Thanks for the feedback.
Really appreciate this Wayne, definitely just saved me a few days work rebuilding a server. 🙂
Hi Kevin,
Great! Glad it worked for you and saved you days of work. 🙂
You just SAVED MY LIFE!!!! Thank you!!! (from Brazil)
Your very welcome.
Thank-you! after several hours of sorting out underlying hardware issue, was left with an unbootable system – this is the fix that finally solved it. The frustrating part is that it is very difficult to find out where the problem actually is, just boots to a black screen with mouse, then stops. How are you supposed to find out what is going on?
Great, glad it resolved the issue for you.
I know, I believe it’s a bug or issue with windows and it corrupts the registry.
This is why I like the internet so much! You’re never alone when you have a problem! Many thanks guys, this helped me out a lot!
Glad it helped. 🙂
Nothing else I attempted changed the “Black screen of death”. Sometimes it’s the simple things that just work. Thanks so much.
Awesome! Glad it worked for you.
Hi – Thank you – It worked. Greatly Appreciated
Awesome. I’m glad that it worked for you.
didn’t work for me..
That’s shame. Have a good new year!
That’s a shame. Could you share more about your configuration?
This help correct an issue with a Black Screen with Mouse cursor on Windows 2008 R2 Standard after applying some security settings. Thanks for the post.
I tried to copy *.* from safemode but it refuse to copy the files….
Hi
Thanks for the comment, did you run as Admin maybe?
Hi
I tried Run as administrator…
Msg:- “The process cannot access the files because it is being used by another process”
Please assist
I don’t think we did it from Safe Mode, trying putting the boot drive into a working PC and then copying the registry backup, then put the drive back and try booting. Good Luck!
Hi Wayne,
Thanks… It’s working
Our server blue screened on boot after this, had to snapshot back. Still have a broken server….. research continues. Thanks for posting this though 🙂
That’s a shame… You sure you don’t have a hardware fault such as memory?
I have windows server 2008 R2 virtual machine, there is no RegBack folder in the c:\windows\system32\config directory. Any ideas?
Hi there,
could you please explain more about the first and the second steps?
i got the same problem and i was able to reach command prompt using the windows media repair, but i didn’t understand what do you mean by navigate and also what do you mean by MD backup.
thanks a lot for your efforts,
regards,
Thanks a lot but unfortunately it didn’t work with me 🙂
when i restarted, same problem appeared.
Hi
Are you sure you copied the files over?
MD in DOS/Command Prompt is Make Directory.
Thanks for the article, excellent suggestion and instructions, but did not fix the issue for me.
In my case this happens after installing windows updates. Only way forward for me is to do a restore.
Hi Mikael,
Sorry it didn’t work for you and I’m sorry that you had this issue during the holidays. Have a great new year.
Thanks
Hi Wayne, you save my live. tks
Hi Wayne, you saves my live. tks. IT Work. Window server 2008 r2
Hi,
Great. Happy it worked.
Thanks
Great. It works! Many Thanx!