Black screen of death after login in to Windows 10

[JamesAB]

Hi,

After some days of successfully running Windows 10, today I started to get a Black Screen of Death, but with a visible cursor, after logging in. I Googled the problem, easily found some suggested remedies, such as invoking task manager and restarting explorer, none of which worked.

I then noticed that my 4TB external back-up drive was running, as it does when doing an automatic backup. I powered down my PC by holding down the power button and disconnected the external drive. The PC then booted up correctly and also would restart without a problem.

I then powered down the PC and reconnected the external drive and suffered the same BSOD as before. Whilst the PC was in this state I pulled out the external drive's USB connection to the PC which immediately carried on starting up, correctly. I have yet to establish if the drive had not been trying to effect a back up on power up, whether or not I would have got the BSOD, but I suspect not!

I hope that this is of help to someone!

Regards,

Jim

 

[Corrine]

Have you actually set up the backup on Windows 10 or was the backup information saved from upgrading? You might want to check the settings to ensure that the drive is recognized: Back up and restore your files - Windows Help

 

[JamesAB]

Hi Corrine,
I don't believe I have executed or set up a backup on this drive and it may be that it is only backups from W7 that are on it. I have just attached the drive to my wife's PC and have observed the same problems as when the drive is attached to my PC. However this is a recent problem and did not occur in the first few days after I had installed W10. So I am led to believe that the problem relates to the drive itself which is a 4TB Seagate external drive. I am at a loss as to how I might diagnose the disks problems. It is fairly new so I guess that I will be having words of wisdom with Segate. My PC recognizes the drive in Windows Explorer but it does not seem to be able to read its contents. I will try to see if my Partition Manager software "sees" it.

Regards, Jim

 

[JamesAB]

Windows 10 is reporting a driver error for the, 5 not 4TB, drive. Fortunately the drive is under warranty so it will be shortly sent back to Seagaate - once I have read and digested the 20 pages of information on how returns should be packed!

Jim

 

[Corrine]

20 pages! Best get reading, Jim, before the warranty expires!