Toshiba Satellite L300 Won't Boot

After installing Spybot & Spyware Doctor in Safe Mode With Networking & attempting to run a few scans with them on a Toshiba Satellite L300 that got to just before user login screen but no further before.

But got the dreaded BSOD & now, regardless of what mode I boot I get it everywhere before the user login screen, including LKGC. On the rare occassion that it doesn't do this I get a grey background with a system error that says: 'System Restore Options: The installed program cannot start. Click OK to turn off the computer'.

The BOSD says:

"Disable or uninstall any anti-virus, disk defragmentation or backup utilities. Check your hard drive configuration & check for any updated drivers. Run chkdsk/f to check for hard drive corruption, & then restart your computer."

 

Repair Your Computer in Advanced Boot Options gives the same errors also.

 

Operating system?

 

Vista.

 

Is this the Repair your Computer you are trying--and it blue screens before giving you any further options?

 

That's the one. & yip.

Downloaded Harem's Boot CD there & got HD Tune 2.55 - Hard Disk Utility scanning at the mo in XP Mini but taking ages.

Ran Malwarebytes & Spybot scans but they're not picking up anything on the problem drives but scan is suspiciously quick so presume it's not picking up the vast majority of the drives.

 

I've never seen a blue screen on the recovery options--they should be separate from the main OS and very basic.

Try running the chkdsk /r on the Toshiba's System Reserved (100mb partition) and the Toshiba's main OS partition. They should show in My Computer with their drive letters from the Hiren's CD. You can right-click the drives and select Properties then Tools and then Error Checking and tick both boxes to run chkdsk /r.

Since you are familiar with burning ISO files you could also consider getting the Vista Recovery CD which might give you another way of getting to the recovery options where a System Restore point might be available.

 

No, the blue screen shows regardless of what option I choose from the recovery options.

& cheers for the suggestions. Will get on it while this beast of a scan is running. Could be here a while!

 

Can't run chkdsk/r on those drives until current scan is over, but scheduled it to run on startup. Scan's picking up lots of damaged blocks so best let it continue.

 

Finished work so had to quit the HD Tune 2.55 - Hard Disk Utility scan but it had found 1.4% of broken files at about a quarter of the scan. On restart chkdsk/r didn't run.

Ran 'Fix NTLDR is Missing' from Hiren's Boot CD (whatever that is lol) & '1st TRY THIS seleccione esto primero' which returned the error:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:

<Windows root>system32\hal.dll

Make any sense to anyone?

 

Any advice please?

Spent hours upon hours on this & ran every scan possible from Hiren's Boot CD to no avail.

 

I thought I responded yesterday--I guess it disappeared into the vapor.

One thing is Fix NTLDR is an XP app so it was not helpful in this case.

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From the Hiren's CD, tell me what happens when you try this:

It should not have to restart to run these scans because they are not the OS partition. Does it ask if you want to schedule on next startup (you can cancel if it does)? Are you sure you are attempting it on the Toshiba's HD (you should be able to tell by the sizes of the drives)?

I just want to eliminate a file system problem before getting back to the BSOD.

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BTW, A better disc would be a Vista Recovery Environment disc if you want to download that. It would give you another way to get to the Vista System Restore options. (I think the restore option with the grey background you are getting is a Toshiba option--this would be different from within Vista itself.)