Vista - Vista won't boot up normally but safe mode will work.

Yo~!
This is my first time posting here and I must say that I've felt very welcomed and I have been learning a lot through reading through all of the knowledgeable things that you guys have posted. My problem has been going on for a while but has recently gone over the edge and caused me some big problems. I play Second Life and from time to time, it would freeze up my computer but yesterday, the screen of the laptop just went black and I had to hard reboot my computer, only for it to come up with the Vaio screen looking horrible graphically. Then it would commence to the normal boot up and then to a black screen and it stayed there all night. I've tried removing everything with Second Life off of my computer and it still won't boot up completely. I tried leaving it on overnight to see if would bypass the black screen but it wouldn't. How should I go about fixing this? I can try getting my hands on the Vista DVD and or the recovery disks from my girlfriend. I would honestly just like to know what caused the problem and how to fix it because you can easily learn from your mistakes by fixing it. Oh, another interesting tidbit is that my brother used the computer beforehand to do some research then left it on and when he came back, the screen was black and when he rebooted it, the screen was messed up and he did a system restore to bring it back to normal but if I tried that now, it would still only boot up in safe mode and not regularly.

try updating your video card drivers, also since you can get into safe mode you could try to do a system restore to an earlier date when you know it worked..

Oh, I've tried the whole Safe Mode method with System Restore but the system still won't boot up completely. The screen stays messed up on the initial Vaio boot up, then it just goes back to the black screen, where I end up waiting forever.

what video card do you have?

or what system / model # do you have? if it is not custom built.

NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GT.

And it’s a Sony Vaio PCG-8Y2L.

give me min will get you links.

Alrighty~!

From Nvidia

GeForce Release 186

sony website for your laptop, i put in PCG-8Y2L and this is what it gave me.

Sony eSupport - VGN-AR520E - Software Updates & Drivers

try the graphics update first you will have to do it in safe mode with networking.

Okay, I'm about to try them now. Thanks in advance, man.

let us know if it worked or not, and also if you need any more help