Black Screen after logging in

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Jurgen - Jan 27, 2015 at 01:00 AM
Scandy_B Posts 12 Registration date Saturday October 1, 2011 Status Member Last seen January 28, 2015 - Jan 27, 2015 at 09:45 AM
All I wanted to do was download WinRar. I admittedly kind of rushed through the installation and next thing I knew, there was a new icon on my desktop - something called voscun or something like that, I forget - and after a quick google search I found out it was a virus so I uninstalled it from the control panel quickly. Right when I think I dodged a bullet some flaky "super optimizer" cleanup software shows up on my screen. Before I can do anything, suddenly my computer restarts. Earlier my laptop wanted me to restart to apply updates but o said later, the weird thing is that it said it would automatically restart in a day, but it did it only hours later. Not sure if that means the random restart is due to whatever viruses I apparently downloaded or due to windows thinking "a day from now" means when the clock strikes 12, but whatever.

So when it restarted, after I got past the lock screen I'm met with only a black desktop, my cursor, and the super optimizer thing. I exited out of that and opened up task manager, eventually finding my way to the folder with this malware and uninstalling it. But that didn't really help. I mean now when I start up its just a black screen and my cursor, so I guess that's progress, but I'm not really sure what to do. I've looked around he internet, I already tried a hard reset, nothing. Am I screwed? This is a pretty new laptop with a lot of new software and stuff for school and whatnot that I never backed up...help?

My laptop is a toshiba satellite L70-B -011.

On a side note I'm really curious about what kind of sad individual spends his time packaging free software with random viruses. Is it just some sadistic pleasure knowing you're hurting the computers of the elderly and lazy people alike? Bums me out.

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1 response

Scandy_B Posts 12 Registration date Saturday October 1, 2011 Status Member Last seen January 28, 2015
Jan 27, 2015 at 09:45 AM
Hi Jurgen,

If I understand correctly, you have Windows 7 and when you start up, after login, you see a black screen (without a taskbar or any desktop icons) and your mouse pointer?
Is that correct?

If yes, did you try to just run explorer.exe from the task manager? If it will start up the taskbar and everything at least you can backup stuff. Moreover, you could install CCleaner and using it look into what you have in your Startup programs list. I had it once that a virus put a small annoying program there, run it from the temp folder, and run it at every startup. So it will be good to check if there isn't anything suspicious in that list and disable it if it's there. Running a MalwareBytes scan could help as well.

Another way to access your files without going through the dark desktop screen is by downloading (I guess from other computer) and burning a live CD of any Linux OS (for example Linux Mint xfce is really light and works almost like Windows) and run the live CD on your computer without actually installing it. This will give you access to your hard drive without starting up Windows or any viruses that start at startup. Again this could help to backup your needed files, clean up your temp folder from the AppData folder and maybe delete anything unwanted if you know where it is.

Hope this is of some help.
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