Many users reportedly encountered the black screen issue when they tried to install Windows 10 Creators Update using the official Upgrade Assistant utility by Microsoft.
The Issue looks like the following: when the Upgrade Assistant finishes its work under Windows 10, it reboots the PC to begin the upgrade procedure. Thus, you see the progress percentage on the blue screen. And when it reaches 30% or so the system is rebooted once more and boots to a black screen without a cursor.
1. Black Screen Caused By Software Issues
First of all try to reset (turn off and turn on) your PC. Do it several times. It is quite possible that Windows 10 will boot successfully.
If the previous tip doesn’t work for you the only known solution capable to fix the black screen issue is to create a bootable USB stick with the latest Windows 10 Creators Update and perform a clean re-installation of the operating system.
Use another PC!
- Go to the Microsoft website: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10
- Download Media Creation Tool.
- Create a bootable USB stick (it will contain Windows 10 Creators Update):
- Boot from USB and reinstall Windows:
2. Black Screen Caused By Hardware Issues
Some users report that even a clean reinstall doesn’t fix the black screen issue. We can assume that the cause is hardware issues and you have nothing to do except revert to the previous build of Windows 10, for instance, restore your system using a backup-restore software:
If you managed to solve the issue in a different way, drop a comment.
Adam Swift Adam is a real tech maniac. He likes to spend time testing phones, tablets, laptops, as well as any other technical devices, and write practical manuals on their functions. He often sleeps all day, but always works at night.
Adam bought his first computer in 1999, being an absolute beginner who never held a computer mouse in his hands. He began to study Windows, constantly experimented and often crashed the operating system. But six months later, he was able to reinstall Windows 98 from a scratch on his own, fix almost any software problem on a PC, he also did hardware upgrades and realized that computers, operating systems and programs are now his biggest passion.
In addition, Adam has always been a big lover of phones. With the advent of smartphones with Android OS, he began to pick at them much more than in computers.
Now Adam loves to study privacy issues in instant messengers, blocking unwanted calls and other nuances related to privacy and security on the network. You can follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tunecomp
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Im also ****ed because of this. Thought I was the only one. Sadly I have no restore points, recovery don't revert the update, and I have no image backup. Fantastic. Thank you Microsoft for all your hard work!
John, I am solving this issue right now. I restarted (reset) one my laptop for two times and finally it booted perfectly - Windows 10 is updated to Creators Update. Now trying to fix the same on another old laptop.
P.S. please, don't use *** words while commenting. I have to moderate.
I am adding some information. Got the same black screen on another PC. I created a bootable flash with Windows 10 Creators Update and performed a CLEAN reinstallation. And I got the black screen as well! But the power off-power on for 4 or 5 times helped me to boot into Windows 10. Weird.
How quickly did you guys have to power off and on? I tried at least 5 times and quit because it seemed like it would go no where.
Lastly, is it imperative to do a clean install? I am experiencing this on only 1 machine. The other machines updated it just fine. I'd like to know what's causing this bug
I power cycled for 5 times when the PC finally booted at my surprise. And this was on the machine where I performed a clean install (after I met the black screen issue while updating using Update Assistant). So I don't know what the clean re-install actually did. 90% of all my machines updated perfectly using Update Assistant as well. But two laptops encountered this issue. Just weird...
If your damaged Windows copy is valuable for you, you can create a backup image (to be able to try recovery like later) and clean re-install.
Thanks for this article. The black screen happened to me. I feel like I reset my computer like 8 times. Maybe the 7th time, I got to my login screen. But after signing in, it went to black again. Then reset again and got passed the login screen, but it was constantly flickering between black and the picture. Did a restore to previous Windows Build. Looks like I'm back where I was before the Creators Update. I hope they fix this problem as it rolls out.
Hello when you say you restore to previous windows build do you mean system restore to previous backup. Because I'm trying to do that now. Did you run it through save mode or just in the advanced options and did you get an error when you did it the first time?
This is happening to me when I switch to 1080p. 4k works though.
so how do you fix this without needing to do a clean install ( in regards to losing all saved game files and the likes?)
Even when i try to go back to a system resorted point it's in the middle of the installation, is there a way to stop this?
So is there a way to fix this without a clean install?
I do not want to lose all my saves, settings configs and projects I've been working on.
So far when I try a safe boot it starts up but when i startup normally i just get a blank screen with the loading circle, then all my screens lose connection and it stays like that until I reboot to start this process over.
When I then reboot to safe mode no issues ( I just can't work from there)
Oh, goody! I thought I was the only one and had given up hope on updating to the Creators Update. I have a six-year old Sony Vaio laptop and faced this issue while updating, the only difference being that the update would reach 75% before rebooting to a black screen. Booting to safe mode did not help as the laptop would reboot once the desktop appeared. I don't want to do a clean install though since I'm too lazy to perform a full backup. Has anyone tried this power cycling from a normal update?
Try going to the last build of windows, then enroll in the fast preview on the insider program, then try updating from there
Had the same thing. Black screen after all the updating, which took about an hour! Had updated all my drivers beforehand but that didn't help.
Couldn't even boot into safe mode.
Did the reboot thang about 10 times. Black screen and a cursor arrow is all I got for my trouble.
Luckily had a recent image that restored everything just fine. Backup, backup, backup! ALWAYS backup! That and I have a disk mirrored just in case the backup craps out!
Guess we'll have to wait till they get it sorted out.