Vista Black Screen Of Nothingness

Just spent most of the morning/afternoon trying to get on to my laptop after Vista decided to show a black screen with just the mouse arrow instead of the login screen. Looking round the net it appears to be a common problem with Vista but none of the fixes worked for me.

Eventually I found that the following fixed the problem:
On bootup press F8
Select the Repair option (already highlighted. I missed it to start with thinking it was the heading).
On the program that loads choose the option to restore.
On the list of restore points choose one from a few days earlier when you computer was last working. My last restore point had been created the day before the problem and was created due to a Windows update so assume this must have caused the problem.
Once the restore has finished you should be able to login as normal.