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Running Windows 7 64-bit I updated my nForce 730i graphics drivers from Windows Update. After rebooting, the system blacked out on the Starting Windows screen. It restarted, loaded System Repair and automatically selected the latest Restore Point.

System Restore did not complete successfully. Your computer's system files and settings were not changed.

Details:
System Restore failed while restoring the registry from the restore point. 
The restore point was damaged or was deleted during the store.

Running Startup Repair found no solutions, and I could not boot into Last Known Good Configuration.

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Here's a tip: Don't ever use drivers for graphics cards from Windows Update. Always go for nVidia's drivers. – AndrejaKo May 29 '11 at 15:33
@AndrejaKo: This hint was valid years ago. Nowadays the drivers on Windows Update provided for Windows 7 are quite up-to-date. Well, not always absolutely the latest bleeding-edge drivers but stable ones. As long as you don't have a pure gaming machine and need the latest drivers to make it compatible with the latest game it's fine to get the Windows Update drivers. They are usually stable. – SkyBeam May 29 '11 at 15:43
@SkyBeam Don't mind if I still continue to stick to it. I've always had problems with Windows Update drivers, even on 7. – AndrejaKo May 29 '11 at 16:01
@AndreajaKo: Sure I don't mind. I personally always use the driver from nvidia.com directly. But lots of my customers are just casual gamers or normal office users. So for them Windows Update is entirely fine and keeps the driver automatically up to date. – SkyBeam May 29 '11 at 16:10
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2 Answers

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I personally think that this issue is not entirely nVidia driver related. If even the Last Known Good Configuration option is not working then something must have been seriously damaged in the Windows configuration.

Are you able to boot in VGA mode (available in F8 boot menu too). If not even this works, then it's usually not related to a faulty graphics driver.

A wild guess is that the system probably crashed in the moment the driver was updating system resources and therefore corrupted them. There is for example the possibility that your PSU is not sufficiently powering your graphics card and the switch to 3D mode (when the driver was loaded) overloaded the PSU, causing a voltage drop and a complete system crash. Well, really a wild-guess.

If not even Windows system recovery helps then I would recommend doing a Windows re-install unless you can provide some more detailed information (e.g. is there any Blue/Black screen displaying faulty modules during startup?).

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When booting, it blacks out during the "Starting Windows" screen, and reboots to the System Recovery center. I'll give the VGA mode a try. – nateify May 29 '11 at 15:54
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up vote 0 down vote accepted

Booted into Safe Mode with Networking, uninstalled all nVidia drivers, then installed slightly older nVidia graphics drivers from their archives. My system seems to work perfectly now.

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