Solutions Log by Dan Reiland

When you start a Windows Vista-based computer, the system may stop responding (hang) at a black screen

Issue:
When you start a Windows Vista-based computer, the system may stop responding (hang) at a black screen.

Additionally, you may experience the following symptoms when you try to recover from this problem:

• If you restart the computer, press F8 before the Windows Vista progress indicator appears, and then click the Safe Mode option, the same problem occurs.
• If you start Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) to restore the Windows Vista-based computer, WinRE stops responding.If you try to use Windows Vista installation media to repair the system, the system stops responding.

Cause:
This problem may occur because of file system corruption within the $Txf directory. This corruption causes a deadlock condition between the Transactional NTFS (TxF) process and the Autocheck process.

Resolution:
To work around this problem, perform a clean installation or a parallel installation of Windows Vista.

Status:
Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in Windows Vista RTM. This problem was corrected in Windows Vista Service Pack 1.

Reference: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946532