Anyone wanna help me figure this out??

So the official ATO laptop has decided to go on the fritz. Any logical input is welcomed!!

Toshiba laptop with AMD processor, running Windows 7

It will start up but won't load windows at all, anyone know the steps to jump in and save my files before wiping it??

 

PM Sent

 

Do you get an error message when it should be loading windows? Does it seem to just reboot on it's own in an endless loop?

After the BIOS loading screen, continue to tap F8 and see if it brings up the boot menu. If it does, try loading into safe mode. If that doesn't load, select the option to disable automatic reboot on error and see if you get a blue screen or some other error message.

 

Thanks to clarkie I managed to boot it off a USB with Ubuntu and copy over all my important files to an external hard drive so atleast now I feel better about not loosing that stuff.

coldone - when it starts up I get the windows 7 spash screen, then says it's loading windows, then goes black for a few with the mouse still there and finally pops up with the system recovery options screen or something like that.

 

On the system recovery options, is there an option for "last known system settings that worked" or something to that effect? You might try that, sometimes it works. If you can get into safe mode by using the F8 key, you might be able to try system restore and go back a day or so before this started happening.

 

Yea when I try to start it now it says operating system not found or something, don't even get the windows splash screen anymore. I've got a usb setup with the windows 7 iso files on it but need to figure out if I have to wipe the hard drive first or what.

 

Is the hard drive clicking? When my laptop went out she would say the OS was messed up and the harddrive was clicking pretty bad.

 

try booting in safe mode then restore to an earlier date see if that fixes it?

 

How old is the laptop? If out of nowhere it is now saying OS not found, I would guess your hard drive is shot. If you have all of your important files, try reinstalling windows but id bet you'll be getting another hard drive soon.

One thing you might try if you can get into Ubuntu is see if there are any hard drive utilities. Check the drive for errors and see if it can fix them. Worth a shot.

 

Well been trying to re install windows from a flash drive and not having any luck at all. Starting to think it may be time to start looking at new hard drives. This laptop came stock with a 256GB 5400rpm drive, while I can always replace it with something similar does anyone have any opinions of whether it's worth upgrading to an SSD while I'm at it? And if so do I need to stick with the 256GB or is 128GB sufficient?

 

Definitely put an SSD in that thing. It'll be a huge performance boost. Get a 128GB.. 256 and higher are far too expensive per GB. 128 should be fine unless you pack-rat lots of stuff on there... in which case, consider an external drive for extra storage.

 

You don't need an ssd, it's nice but the price is still not there per gb. How old is the laptop? How many cores, DDR2 or 3, SSD will help in the boot and seek time. I had to replace all new drive in a 1 1/2 yr old comp. Luckly i was able to mirror the OS before the drive crapped out. Besides that you can prob get a new laptop for pretty cheap. More bang for the buck with amd, but the intel i3's can be had for cheap. $400 and you can get a good basic laptop.