Windows 8.1 Installation Fails with Blank Black Screen

[Patre]

During the installation/several reboots, my PC is getting a Blank Black screen.
The last thing I remember doing was:agreeing to the License terms, chose Custom settings, entered sign in info to my Microsoft account, and agreed to use SkyDrive. It did a reboot and now all I have is a Blank Black screen.
I manually restarted (times x2) in hopes of getting into BIOS, but cannot see anything due to the Black screen.

I'd appreciate any help in getting this resolved. (My specs are listed in my sig).

Ps.
During the previous night, I started the download (DL) process (through Win 8 App) and thought it would save the 8.1 upgrade into my DL folder...... where I could install at my own leisure. The next morning, the DL process had completed, but still hadn't started the installation. I put the PC to sleep and went to work. Came back that evening and attempted to make a backup/recovery of my current system using Acronis 13 (I was actually in the process of installing this software) when Win 8.1 stated it's Rebooting and basically cancelled all my backup plans. So, I'm not sure what state my PC is in. :'(......Please help!

 

[Pardus]

do a clean install with a local account settings. if your upgrading, uninstall any anti virus app first. sounds like driver issue, but who knows.

 

[Patre]

do a clean install with a local account settings. if your upgrading, uninstall any anti virus app first. sounds like driver issue, but who knows.

I can always do a clean install, but would like to keep this as a last resort.

I'm trying to recover or at least simply get access to the PC......isn't there a way to boot up Windows 8 through flash drive?? Could it be my video card is just not being accessed properly by Win 8.1, thus the Blank Black screen?

 

[ViRGE]

I'm trying to recover or at least simply get access to the PC......isn't there a way to boot up Windows 8 through flash drive?? Could it be my video card is just not being accessed properly by Win 8.1, thus the Blank Black screen?

Anything's possible. If it fails to boot a couple of times it will send you over to the recovery environment, which will allow you to boot into Safe Mode. if Safe Mode doesn't work, then either the OS is completely hosed or something else is terribly wrong.

 

[Patre]

Anything's possible. If it fails to boot a couple of times it will send you over to the recovery environment, which will allow you to boot into Safe Mode. if Safe Mode doesn't work, then either the OS is completely hosed or something else is terribly wrong.

Actually, I found out (the hard way) that it seems to be the Intel's iGPU that's causing this.

I reset the CMOS, disabled my HIS IceQ graphics card, and was able to to get into BIOS using my iGPU.

I am able to get into Windows 8.1.........updated to the latest BIOS.

After updating to the latest BIOS and on reboot, back to a black screen. (BTW, my HIS IceQ is still disabled).

Had to manually restarted PC a few times and finally got into windows.

Checked Device Mgr. to see the status of the intel graphics HD 4000 driver and found out: Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems (Code 43).

Googled it this AM and at the Intel site there's a possible fix, but seems like people are having mixed results
https://communities.intel.com/thread/46588 (a work in progress). Some people have had good results with the new drivers and others have had to use older drivers.......looks like it's a trial and error method to be used here.......

Apparently Win 8.1's Automatic Update is causing some driver issues and Intel is suggesting to manually install the graphics driver (which I'm planning on trying out this evening)......it can be DL here: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=23405