The other day when I tried to boot Win 7 Pro x64, I got to the screen where I entered my password, but then it was very slow to complete the “Starting..” screen and then it went to a Black screen with a white cursor arrow (which moved with the mouse).
I waited about a minute and then pressed Ctrl-Alt-Del and got a startup-like screen (which I had never seen before) with options which allowed me to start the task manager, logoff, reboot and some others, plus the red shutdown button in the lower right corner. I chose the task manager to see what was happening. There were only about 15 system processes, but more were added as I watched. About one every 5-10 seconds. In a few minutes my wallpaper appeared and after several more minutes, my startup programs were run (slowly).
It turns out that this was apparently due to a failed internet connection. I am connected through a router which supplies a network signal to the computer, but my cable service was down due to an outage, so my computer was not able to access the internet. I suspect that all the system services were waiting for an internet response and timing out. This would account for the slow boot time.
So, I disconnected my computer’s RJ-45 ethernet cable from the router, rebooted, and the system started normally. I guess that Win 7 found there was no network and no longer tried to access the internet (and timing out).
I hope this helps someone else when faced with this strange behavior.
BTW I reconnected the ethernet cable after the startup was finished and was able to work normally within the local network while the cable service was still out.
PS: My XP Laptop was also slow to startup on this same network, but not so bizzare as to have a black screen.
