Fixed Windows 8 boot into black screen with mouse cursor problem

This morning, I found my laptop unable to boot up to Windows 8.

During boot up, it stuck at a black screen with mouse cursor. The mouse cursor is movable. There were harddisk activities which eventually stopped, and nothing happen next. No Windows logo shown, and no login screen.

I've tried the following but nothing worked:

• Press ctrl-alt-del, nothing happened.
• Press the Power key to turn off the laptop, then press the Power key again to start up. It went to the same situation.
• Press F8, F12, shift-F12, etc. during boot up, nothing happened. There was no boot menu shown up.

I searched the Internet and found that this is a problem faced by many. I fixed it by having an abnormal power off in the black screen with mouse cursor, and let Windows heal itself during the next boot up progress.

To do so, unplug the power cable, and remove the laptop battery while it is still in the black screen with mouse cursor, after the harddisk activities stopped. Wait for 30 seconds, then put back the laptop battery and plug back the power cable. Press the Power key to turn on the laptop. Viola! Finally Windows is back to normal.

The key to this fix is that, you need to abnormally power off the system. The problem won't fix if you press the Power key to shutdown properly and restart.

I checked the Event Viewer, can't find anything logged about this problem. Microsoft, why your Windows always caught us by surprise, and yet left us clueless to troubleshoot the problem???