Black Screen of Death repair 101: remove the battery

In the swanky world of MS Windows 8.0, a world of screen tiles and no start button, there is a single thing you should not do with your new notebook.

Do not take it to the vendor service counter if the cool machine won't start up one day.

We had the not so rare opportunity to dive into the world of MS Windows 8.0 and learn all about the Black Screen of Death.

If you are one of the many millions of users who have come to accept the Blue Screen of Death, the folks of Redmond, WA., have a new one for you, the Black Screen of Death.

Windows 8.0 will show a black screen with a cursor when your boot fails.

No error message, none of the old cool reminders to press F2 for the BIOS or F8 for Safe Mode. Gone in the name of faster startup and slickness.

And in the name of security, there is the new UEFI feature which prevents installation of viruses and, incidentally, Linux.

So, if you are like most users, you will experience the mixture of rage and guilt that overcomes normal people when their computer won't start up.

You will direct that rage at Microsoft. Note that we do not support rage, it is a bad evolutionary leftover. But we cannot ignore it either.

Because the boogie man is Microsoft.

You will feel a little better and be able to ignore your guilt. The guilt of not having saved your crucial data on an external drive, the guilt of not having taken the 20 or thirty minutes it takes to make a recovery CD or USB drive.

But much of the rage is misplaced.

Because Microsoft has made lots of invisible improvements over the years. Windows 8.0 can recover from situations the older versions could not.

You should direct some of the rage towards the hardware maker.

Here is why: The instructional videos on troubleshooting on the computer maker websites lie. They do not lie on purpose but out of the omission that comes with knowing your stuff too well.

For example, not a single one of those websites we reviewed starts with the simplest of simple instructions: remove the battery and leave it out.

Instead, a friendly if not very camera experienced technician will show you how to get into the BIOS by pressing F2. It works beautifully, just not on your machine.

Why?

Because the battery keeps some, let's call it stuff, alive on your machine, preventing it to shut down "all the way". Windows won't tell you, the computer won't tell you.

If you ever get a black screen with a visible cursor and your computer is a notebook or a netbook, take out the battery.

Leave it out.

Hook up the wall socket power supply. Have a cup of coffee, then press the on button.

In a lot of cases, the computer will start. Make that backup of data and that recovery disc. Shut it down. Then put the battery back in.

If this does not work, maybe your hard drive is corrupted or dead, too bad. You need expert help, but don't go to the big box store customer service quite yet. Find the local repair guy who will try to save your data first.