I've got a dell laptop for nearly 2 years and worked brilliantly until recently.

it starts like normal but it can never get past the "starting" screen. it goes black with the mouse arrow on the screen and when I move it or touch a button, it dims. it stays like that for hours and it's like I have to restart it like 20 times for it to work. I don't have that much time on my hands so I find myself running back and forth checking if it actually works but nothing happens.

any ideas what it could be and what I could do to fix it without costing me anything?

First things first, see if you can boot into safe mode and back everything up.

If it runs fine in safe mode, you might just have malware, in which case you need to run software like ComboFix or Malwarebytes to find the problem.

If that doesn't fix your problem, you need to run a SMART Check on your hard drive. Download/Run a program called Crystal DiskInfo. It will tell you if your hard drive is failing. If it is, you need to replace it (will cost you around $100 and require reinstalling the operating system).

If nothing's wrong with your hard drive, you can just go ahead with an operating system reinstall, and pray. Because if an OS reinstall doesn't fix your problem at that point, it's a failure of another piece of hardware in your system, in which case you need to get the computer itself looked at.

thanks! I'll try that!

@Na'La92 Try Last known good configuration which is:

Remove all floppy disks, CDs, and DVDs from your computer, and then restart your computer by clicking the Start button , clicking the arrow next to the Shut Down button , and then clicking Restart.
Do one of the following:

If your computer has a single operating system installed, press and hold the F8 key as your computer restarts. You need to press F8 before the Windows logo appears. If the Windows logo appears, you'll need to try again by shutting down and restarting your computer.

If your computer has more than one operating system, use the arrow keys to highlight the operating system you want to start, and then press F8.

On the Advanced Boot Options screen, use the arrow keys to highlight Last Known Good Configuration (advanced), and then press Enter.

If your computer has more than one operating system installed, use the arrow keys to highlight the operating system that you want to start by using Last Known Good Configuration, and then press Enter. Windows will then resume starting normally.

>>4 I see you know how to Google. It's a good idea, but as stated on Microsoft's tech site, it's a procedure that cannot be undone. This means that if the process fails, it could possibly exacerbate the problem by tampering with your registry settings in a way you don't necessarily know how to fix.

Another option would be seeing if there's a recovery partition on the laptop itself, or getting a recovery disk from a friend. Then, one could use Command Prompt to run a disk check, MBR check, and system restore (which is undoable).

this time around I agree with MKOLLER... going through safe mode and using a unti-malware software is more than enough to solve the famous "black desktop" problem... it is very common to most windows users... however doing the first solution above the rest should put you back on track...