Laptop will not install OS on blank hard drive. Previous discrepancies in description.

[Xander Konrad]

Hello, I'm deployed right now and have been the " go to " tech guy for many months now here in the desert. This person's laptop however has stumped me.

First off, the hardware i have here is a Toshiba Satellite P855-S5102

The first issue with this laptop was the screen flashing black in a continuous timed interval, no matter what you do. The guy at the time then tried to do a system restore which ended up not working and gave him this "http/i.imgur.com/SzXXm5r.jpg " screen when he tried to boot it up. He then punted it to me as i have a very nice working copy of windows 8.1 on hand at all time.

The only way i could enter the boot menu was holding "F12" down the entire time and THEN powering on the PC. That in itself is strange

I am met with MANY different partitions of this guys hard drive which confuses me as i'm used to just having "system" and "primary" to choose from. Here are the different partitions.

http/i.imgur.com/2ei8dYR.jpg
http/i.imgur.com/qWKWvn4.jpg
http/i.imgur.com/N6UnRfQ.jpg

I get this " http/i.imgur.com/yMd29q2.jpg" error when i choose the biggest partition, so i end up having to delete it and have it come up as unallocated space for me to even use.

http/i.imgur.com/mWu1Hqr.jpg

When i do end up selecting it I get the following message before it attempts to install windows.

http/i.imgur.com/zx8680v.jpg

I click yes and the two following things happen

http/i.imgur.com/AMo7dpB.jpg
http/i.imgur.com/kw7GWcK.jpg

So my questions are,

Why are there so many partitions and how can i get rid of them? They do not go away when i delete them.

How do i format a drive to FAT32 from the BIOS?

Am I doing something wrong here?

I really apprciate you guys helping me out when I'm stumped like this, I never take this community for granted so I just wanted to say thanks in advance for all the help you guys give.

 

[R_1]

Do you have a thumb drive, if so download a copy of puppy Linux and boot the system with that, very small and easy. I have used puppy Linux as a windows rescue tool for years. http/distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/puppy-slacko-5.7/slacko-5.7.0-PAE.iso based on slack-ware and my preference.
burn to usb with your favourite image writer. I use Rufus https/rufus.akeo.ie/
insert newly made puppy and boot the system. when you get to the desktop you will find the tools needed to repartition/format the drive.
I am installing puppy in a virtual machine so I can walk you to the tools needed to format the partition, or repartition the drive. will post again in 20 minutes.

 

[R_1]

When it boots you can close the first 2 windows that popup. right-click on the desktop for the menu go to filesystem and launch pmount that will let you mount the hard drive. open menu and go to system and find gparted that will let you examine the hard drives/partitions and give you some options.
If you are sure of the partition you can delete the partition in question. reboot the system and try to install windows to the empty partition letting the windows utility make the partition and format the drive.

you have tried with the windows tools, hope this is helpful.

 

[Xander Konrad]

When it boots you can close the first 2 windows that popup. right-click on the desktop for the menu go to filesystem and launch pmount that will let you mount the hard drive. open menu and go to system and find gparted that will let you examine the hard drives/partitions and give you some options.
If you are sure of the partition you can delete the partition in question. reboot the system and try to install windows to the empty partition letting the windows utility make the partition and format the drive.

you have tried with the windows tools, hope this is helpful.

When i close the first two windows it brings me straight back to the black screen that says "Reboot and select proper Boot device" Im downloading puppy linux right now, the internet here in the desert sucks, like 5-50 KBs/sec. So it will be a good while before it's done.

My Dad actually uses puppy all the time, he always praises its simplicity and how fast it can speed up old ass PCs

 

[Xander Konrad]

Is there a reason you want to keep these partitions? You can just delete them and see if the setup is able to work normally after that.
If it doesn't want to delete the partitions then you can try to clean the disk.
On the first screen of the setup press shift + f10, a command prompt window should appear. Enter the command "diskpart", in diskpart enter the command "list disk". Note the number of the hard drive and enter "select disk {hard drive number}", so for instance "select disk 0". Enter the command "clean", this will erase all partitioning meta data from the drive. exit diskpart with "exit" and exit the command prompt with "exit". Continue the setup as normal. Do not create any partitions, just point the setup at the empty drive and it will do what's needed.

[spam removed]

So far I successfully deleted all those partitions, im getting and error code saying "We couldn't install Windows in the location you chose. Please check your media drive. Here's more info about what happened: 0x80300001."

I did some google searches and many people have said that they left the drive CD in and they forgot to put the installation DVD in, im using a USB that has all the drivers it needs. I also am trying to check is my SATA port is set correctly to AHCI, but i cannot find it on the BIOS. Honestly im questioning if im even in the BIOS right now, i hold down F2 to get to this and it's called "Aptio Setup Utility" There is not option to test any of the components either, usually there's an option to do that.

 

[R_1]

I had assumed the bandwidth would be spotty, puppy is the smallest workable linux I know.
While we wait for the puppy, have you pulled the hard drive and tried it in another machine/verify the connections?

if there is another machine available put the drive in it, start the windows install, just the first part where it extracts the files to the hard drive, at the reboot move it back home and see if the setup will continue in the new machine. I'm still looking for ya.

just found this http/forums.toshiba.com/t5/Windows-8-8-1/How-to-do-a-clean-installation-from-Windows-8-to-Windows-7/m-p/351236#M777

The laptop does not have a BIOS, it uses an UEFI that supports secure boot, while secure boot is enabled you can only boot from where the pc tells you you can boot.

pressing f12 and then power, then f2 should bring you into the UEFI under system configuration switch it to CSM Boot. once these two settings are changed you should be able to make changes to the system like installing a different version of windows 7/8.

 

[Xander Konrad]

I had assumed the bandwidth would be spotty, puppy is the smallest workable linux I know.
While we wait for the puppy, have you pulled the hard drive and tried it in another machine/verify the connections?

if there is another machine available put the drive in it, start the windows install, just the first part where it extracts the files to the hard drive, at the reboot move it back home and see if the setup will continue in the new machine. I'm still looking for ya.

So far i have made a bit of progress, i was able to delete all the partitions and cleaned the disk using command prompt. I also converted it to GPT which was one of the previous errors i was getting.

Right now I am stuck on this error when i try to select the disk for windows install.

"We couldn't install windows in the location you chose. Please check your media drive. Here's more information about what happened: 0x80300001"

I've googled it a lot and am having trouble on where to go to from here

Puppy linux has finished downloading surprisingly! very good download link you got me there. Should i still use it for something else besides converting the HDD?

I will try to swap the HDD tomorrow when im back at work where i have some tools, im pretty much living in a cardboard box right now.

 

[R_1]

now that you have puppy, play with it and you will find many uses. As long as the system is a pentium 3 or better puppy will run just fine. Booting a virus infected system into a clean environment for cleaning is one quick example. It is one of my oft used tools when fixing PCs.

 

[Xander Konrad]

just found this http/forums.toshiba.com/t5/Windows-8-8-1/How-to-do-a-clean-installation-from-Windows-8-to-Windows-7/m-p/351236#M777

The laptop does not have a BIOS, it uses an UEFI that supports secure boot, while secure boot is enabled you can only boot from where the pc tells you you can boot.

pressing f12 and then power, then f2 should bring you into the UEFI under system configuration switch it to CSM Boot. once these two settings are changed you should be able to make changes to the system like installing a different version of windows 7/8.

Well now this is a good step forward, however when i get to selecting "boot mode" it is blacked out and it does not allow me to change it to CSM Boot. Am i missing something simple here?

 

[Xander Konrad]

now that you have puppy, play with it and you will find many uses. As long as the system is a pentium 3 or better puppy will run just fine. Booting a virus infected system into a clean environment for cleaning is one quick example. It is one of my oft used tools when fixing PCs.

I will for sure take this advice to heart, i think this will be my go to method for many future fixes. Right now im not finding a use for it at the moment since it seems that Im stuck on that error "We couldn't install windows in the location you chose. Please check your media drive. Here's more information about what happened: 0x80300001"

 

[Xander Konrad]

I had assumed the bandwidth would be spotty, puppy is the smallest workable linux I know.
While we wait for the puppy, have you pulled the hard drive and tried it in another machine/verify the connections?

if there is another machine available put the drive in it, start the windows install, just the first part where it extracts the files to the hard drive, at the reboot move it back home and see if the setup will continue in the new machine. I'm still looking for ya.

just found this http/forums.toshiba.com/t5/Windows-8-8-1/How-to-do-a-clean-installation-from-Windows-8-to-Windows-7/m-p/351236#M777

The laptop does not have a BIOS, it uses an UEFI that supports secure boot, while secure boot is enabled you can only boot from where the pc tells you you can boot.

pressing f12 and then power, then f2 should bring you into the UEFI under system configuration switch it to CSM Boot. once these two settings are changed you should be able to make changes to the system like installing a different version of windows 7/8.

Holy shit i missed a step in that link, i was able to make it go to CSM and now windows is currently being installed!! Holy sweet mother jesus you are one magical wizard good sir. Thank you so much! It seems that i need to refine my googling skills and familiarity with the BIOS and Command prompt.

 

[artemis1]

I had the same problem with my hp pavilion elite. I messed around a bit then found that my hardware boot mode was IDE. that was the problem as my computer was set up hardware wise raid 0 style.


good luck