Black screen after clean windows 10 installation

I’m installing an SSD on my dad’s old dell pc. But I’m getting a black screen after install and restart. What should I do?


Steps taken:

1. Boot to bios and change 1st boot order to usb thumb drive

2. boot from thumb drive and install windows 10 pro

3. after installation completes, system restarts

4. Remove thumb drive to prevent install loop

5. boot to bios and change 1st boot priority to SSD

6. Boot from SSD

7. I see the windows load screen for 3 secs then the screen goes black

Hello thumpersd and welcome to TF ,
Appreciate the history you documented.

Screen goes blank and there's no cursor flashing either, is that correct?

1. Try booting to safe mode Boot into Safe Mode on Windows 10

if still no video,
2. Try a different video output from the PC if it has multiple video outputs.

Was there a drive in the PC before that had Windows? Where is that drive now? Still connected or not? How did you install Windows - cloning from old drive, or a fresh install, or what?

steve108 said:

Hello thumpersd and welcome to TF ,
Appreciate the history you documented.

Screen goes blank and there's no cursor flashing either, is that correct?

1. Try booting to safe mode Boot into Safe Mode on Windows 10

if still no video,
2. Try a different video output from the PC if it has multiple video outputs.

That's correct, no cursor can be seen.

Unfortunately I can't even boot to safe mode since Windows installation doesnt appear to be complete. I havent even created a user profile yet.

steve108 said:

Was there a drive in the PC before that had Windows? Where is that drive now? Still connected or not? How did you install Windows - cloning from old drive, or a fresh install, or what?

Yes there was an old hard drive. I still have it but I'm pretty sure it has malware on it, which prompted me to swap it out for the SSD for my dad.

It was a fresh install via USB drive. I used the microsoft windows 10 tool to create it.

AddRAM said:

No need to change the boot order, just use the boot menu key (usually F8) to bring up the boot menu

Choose the Usb stick

Remove the usb stick after 1st reboot

I will reinstall and give that a try

Turns out after the initial install and restart, my monitor connected VGA is not getting any video signal.

Solution: Plugged in the HDMI cable to my TV and now I'm able to get video to the TV. After profile setup and 5-10 mins or so, windows finally recognizes the VGA monitor

thumpersd said:

Turns out after the initial install and restart, my monitor connected VGA is not getting any video signal.

Solution: Plugged in the HDMI cable to my TV and now I'm able to get video to the TV. After profile setup and 5-10 mins or so, windows finally recognizes the VGA monitor

So if you turn the PC off/on now or restart with just VGA connected, does it work correctly/get video immediately?