Vista opens to blank screen

Hello there, hopefully someone can help me out with this little problem.

Whenever I start my computer (HP Pavilion dv5 laptop) from being shut off or if I choose "restart" from the start menu when Windows Vista (64 bit) opens up it opens up to a blank screen.

- I have a curser I can control with the touchpad or mouse (I can't recall what happens to a right click function...)
- the screen looks completely black (uniform in color)

I need to exit using control+alt+delete and then log off and log back on. Only then will I get the desktop top to show for me.

What might be preventing the desktop from generating when starting up?

Thanks!

-Peter

Peter

Hi and welcome to vista. do you have a screensaver? what video card? when you safe boot (F8) on boot do you get the same thing?

Ken

If you disable Aero does this still occur?

It could also be a bad graphics card. Can you borrow one to test?

Try safe mode. If that works, update the video driver.