I installed Windows 11 Pro a few days ago. It has been working well. CHKDSK and SFC scans found no errors. I noticed a Black Screen with dashes or minus signs on the top part of the screen (7-8 dashes with big gaps in between in a straight line). This screen appears when I boot into the PE through Windows Advanced Startup or the boot menu of imaging software. I don't see this screen when I boot Windows normally. (I see this screen with the PE, whether the boot menu of the imaging software is enabled or disabled.) Windows detects disk errors after performing a restore operation with the imaging software. The sequence of events is below. 1. The restore operation successfully completes. 2. I get the "choose your keyboard language" screen when the system restarts. The system starts Diagnosing the PC and immediately shows the Windows PE screen. I run Startup Repair, and the system restarts. 3. I get the "choose your keyboard language" screen. The system shows Attempting Repairs and immediately restarts. 4. The system boots normally. The restore with the imaging software was successful. CHKDSK and SFC scans detect no errors. The boot menu of the imaging software was removed. I tried a restore again with the same result. (The system displays Win 10 Pro on the boot menu and MSCONFIG and Win 11 Pro on About and Activation after the first restore.) How do I fix the black screen? It seems that is the cause of the issue.
There can be many and very different reasons, and you ask - how to fix it... but what to fix or repair? Look, first you need to determine the nature of the error and its exact cause, only then you can start talking about how to fix it. As long as it is not known what is wrong and what is causing it, nothing can be fixed. Eliminating the consequences will not help, it is only temporary if you do not eliminate the cause. So, start by looking for the reason. And another question, why do you think CHKDSK and SFC scans should show you any error? Oh, no. They only show anything for very specific problems, and sfc works only then if you have a shadow copy on your computer to compare to. CHKDSK can use only for HDD disks, but never for any other disk.
@Brian K Hasleo Backup Suite is the imaging software. I performed many successful restores with HBS on this system when it had Win 10 Pro. I upgraded to Win 11 Pro with an in-place upgrade and selected to delete everything. After Windows installation, HBS installation, and some software installs, I created a new admin account and deleted the old one. My other Win 11 Pro system was a clean install with a bootable USB. It, too, has HBS and has been running well with no issues. I tried Aomei Backupper Pro. The restore operation was successful with no issues (started the restore from within Windows - some of the laptop keys don't work, and the PE required arrow keys to select the image I wanted to restore). I tried to fix the black screen with a Win 11 Pro bootable USB, but it immediately displayed the Windows PE screen when I clicked Repair.
When I read "in-place upgrade" I always think that could be a reason for every "strange" problem. Some people never have problems with it and others are just less lucky. If nothing else helps maybe the save your important data and try a clean windows 11 install as a last resort.
khanyash, This black screen issue has also been reported by IFW users. It seems to only occur if the recovery environment is based on the current Win11 winre.wim (dated September 2022). If a previous Win11 winre.wim is used, there is no black screen. IFW recovery environments that don't use winre.wim don't have the black screen. These environments are created using the Win11 ADK. If you wait for 5 minutes, does the black screen disappear?
I always perform a clean install with a bootable USB. This laptop's function keys don't work. And I forgot to use Advanced Startup to use the bootable USB. I'll reinstall Windows if nothing helps fix the issue. The recovery environment has no black screen issue on the other Win 11 system. I used the same Win 11 22H2 bootable USB for both systems. The difference is that one is a clean install and the other is an in-place upgrade. The black screen disappears in 3–4 secs. What I meant was that I think it is the cause of the stated issue. I tried a restore from within Windows with Hasleo, and the result was the same.
I encountered some BSODs too. A clean installation of Windows resolved the black screen and BSOD problems.
