Desperate For Help - Toshiba Laptop Won't Start

Hello,

I am in dire need of assistance. I have an older Toshiba laptop that is either a L55 or something for the model from 2012 (don't think this is that important) that won't start up. It was working fine as of last night, it isn't a virus or anything, and I do not believe it recently updated to my knowledge. It is still running Windows 7 and has been pretty good and reliable until now. This is what happened this morning when I went to boot it up:

• Turned it on and it brought up the screen that it did not turn off properly, giving me the basic prompt of launch startup repair or start windows normally.
  • It does say windows error recovery at the top of the screen, and along the lines of windows failed to start because of a possible hardware/software change.
  • When clicking either of the options, it will load up for a few seconds, and then get to a black screen where the mouse is frozen in the center and do nothing.
    • Sometimes it will then show a super quick flash (maybe 0.5 seconds) of a blue screen I can't read it, and then goes back to the did not turn off properly screen.

So I'm guessing it is something to do with windows maybe? I have also tried going in safe mode (all options), rebooting with the most recent configuration, taking out the battery and unplugging everything, but nothing has worked so far...

I'm not a tech expert, but I have some basic knowledge. Trying to give you guys as much info as possible, but I'm not exactly sure what the problem is or where to look. Is it possible it could be a hardware issue like the hard drive being too old or something? I guess it would best to identify the problem and go from there, but I'm not sure how or what I'm looking for... I tried the BIOS thing, but again I don't know what I'm doing/what I'm looking for.

Ideally I would like to fix it, but mainly I need what is on the hard drive. I am graduate student, and have some important work on there I would like to recover ASAP, and would appreciate any help or assistance! I will also be around and checking the thread regularly if anyone has questions/needs more info etc.

Any help would best amazing, thank you in advance!

 

The Advanced Boot Options screen lets you start Windows in advanced troubleshooting modes.
You can access the menu by turning on your computer and pressing the F8 key before Windows starts (Tap F8 at the rate of about once per second)
If a Repair wont work from this option, then it might be best to use a Windows7 disc to perform a system repair.
Do you have a windows7 disc?

If you dont have a repair disc, you can create one using another working computer (the one your posting here from) then use it on the corrupted Toshiba to recover it.
Create a Windows7 system repair disc

 

Thank you for the reply. I just tried f8 and when I do the repair option it brings up a long white loading bar, loads and then gets to the black screen with the mouse in the middle frozen. So nothing new, and it doesn't tell me what the issue is (assuming it is a windows update).

I can try the repair disc, but do I just put it in to install it? Not sure how to install it if the PC isn't working unless it is automatic or something.

 

If it's just your files you need and you are able to open the laptop box just get a USB 2.5 inch drive enclosure. £9.99 from Amazon. It will give you file access to to the disk providing it hasn't completely failed.

 

Your will need to set your BIOS to boot to it, then go from there!
Google around on how to access the BIOS for your Toshiba laptop and then how to set the boot order correctly to boot from disc.

 

By chance the BIOS didn't get reset? Does it still have the correct date and time? If you have a smartphone record the boot and then pause it so you can read the bluescreen.

 

I thought of that and may do it as a backup, thanks for the tip. But the situation has changed now.

I'll try that, but again things have changed since then.

It does have the time and everything, and I don't think it reset. I can't take a photo of the bluescreen because of what I did. I was playing around with it and tried to do a system restore or something (which failed). And now it doesn't boot up at all (like regular) and does some screen saying the following:

When it boots up, it now brings up a black screen saying PXE-E61 media test failure, check cable. Also something about patents and PXE-M0F exciting PXE ROM, reboot or select proper boot device or insert boot media. It doesn't load up like regular any more either.

In panic mode now this is not good. Really hope this can be solved as I don't want to take this to the store and have to pay some crazy fee or lose everything. Any help would be appreciated, thank you.

 

Are you able to get the BIOS screen at startup? If so, check the boot order. If the HDD is first in the boot order and PXE ROM is somewhere below then your HDD boot config needs rebuilding. You can do that by booting to the Win 7 Rescue disk you have been advised to create (on another Win 7 computer). Replicator has told you how to boot to it in #5

You need to work through this. You won't get it booting otherwise.

 

Yes I can get to the BIOS. The boot order is the HDD>USB>ODD>LAN (PXE?). Are you saying I need to move the PXE? I can adjust them from the BIOS.

My only concern with that is don't I need another Windows 7 PC to make the disk? This other PC I'm on is Windows 10. I'm also going to try the external USB thing later to see if I can salvage stuff. If not I will see what I can do about the disk.

 

I don't want to pursue this solution as it requires too many things you don't have - a Win 7 Repair disk, an optical drive in which to use it for booting, and a second Win 7 computer to create the repair disk in the first place. It's also uncertain that your laptop could boot to a USB connected optical drive if you were to get one. Your disk order in BIOS is fine, it's the boot configuration on the HDD that needs fixing and the Win 7 advanced boot options repair hasn't fixed it. I'd go back to my suggestion in #4.

 

Thanks for the tip.

Update: I got a hard drive enclosure or whatever it is, attached it to my other computer with the USB and it connects. But now the problem is I cannot access the files. The current issue it gives me is that I need to "format the disk in drive" is what it is telling me. When I do this option it gives me the size of the hard drive and some option about file system (NTFS or exFAT), allocation unit size, and volume lable. So I thought I would just go ahead and do this, but when I do it says it will delete everything (yikes) which I don't want. Is there still a way to access the files and make this work? Not sure as I can't find much via Google about this.

Any insight for how to progress? Let me know when you can.

 

Please confirm that the drive you have put in the hard drive enclosure is the drive from your laptop. If you cannot access anything on the drive and are being asked to format it DON'T. Open a command prompt 'as Administrator' (type cmd in Search and 'run as Administrator') and at the command prompt type chkdsk X: /r where X is the drive letter of the hard drive enclosure. Let us know what happens.

 

Doing it, started it a bit earlier. It is on stage 4 which looks like it is going to take a really really long time. I will provide an update when it is done (500GB hard drive). So far it looks like it is reading it which maybe is a good sign and means the data is still there? But if that is case, would that mean the hard drive is alright? Maybe it was a software problem then to begin with. Who knows, just hoping this works out. Thank you again so much for the guidance, I appreciate it and would be lost without it!

 

Success! It worked and I can now access my laptop from the external drive via connected to this other computer. It took like 8 hours for that checkdisk thing, but was totally worth it! Thank you thank you!

The only issue now is when I go to access my files under users (there is default/public/my folder), I can't get into my folder which has all my stuff. When I click it nothing happens, and properties says nothing is in there. I suspect this is because it is locked or something? I do have a password on the PC when I go to login/boot up normally. Could this be why, or is everything still gone? So close but so far...

I tried to play around with the security tab under properties, but couldn't figure it out. If it was something easy like input password, no problem. But not sure how to access it now. When I go to edit security it says like advanced, and then permissions/auditing/effective access, and change owner at the top or something.

I gave up for now, but progress is good. Just need some final tips and hopefully it will be solved. Thanks again Earthling and everyone so far!

 

Actually, I got it to work (was a bit convoluted, but I did it!) so all good! I was able to scavenge all important documents and copy over all of my research stuff. Everything is backed up now and I can go through the rest at a later date.

Thank you again Earthling, and I can finally be at ease and focus on my research. I would have never figured out the checkdisk thing on my own even with Google. I'll probably dispose of the computer and clear out all documents later. I may pop in the hard drive to test it, but it must be something with the software and that seems even harder/trickier for me to fix (still not sure from what nothing was strange/different that night but I don't need to know anymore). So I'll leave it be as this is good enough since I got everything that mattered and that PC is old... Time for an upgrade!

Cheers and I cannot express how helpful you guys have been. Really appreciate the support and you guys probably saved me a few $100.

Hope you all have a good weekend~

 

Good result and well done for being patient as you must have been wondering if it was simply stuck After all that, and if it were mine, I couldn't resist putting it back in the laptop and seeing if chkdsk has actually fixed the boot problem too. I'm guessing it will have done. Cheers.