Solved! Missing vital windows files, backup partition vanished?!

[dontbesojumpy]

i have a toshiba M305d satellite laptop. i had the hard drive replaced under factory warranty and ran the disks that came with it to re-install windows.

the screen cracked and i've been running it through an external monitor. now, all of the sudden, it's all scrambled. system restore has vanished and most general windows features no longer work and result in varying error messages. i cannot run personalization, i cannot transfer files (like backing data off the laptop). system restore produces an error message as does many other system tool programs.

this happens in full mode and safe mode. i tried to run repair computer from F8 bootup but it finds nothing to repair from. i inserted my factory toshiba recovery CD again and it just reads it as a blank disc.

all i want to do at this point is reset the computer to factory new. i do not need to get any data off or save any settings. i just want to restore.

how do i do this?

 

[buwish]

It sounds like the factory didn't re-install the recovery partition. With those symptoms though, it sounds like you have another bad hard drive on your hands. I'd call Toshiba and describe the symptoms to maybe get another HDD with the recovery partition on it.

 

[dontbesojumpy]

toshiba confirms it is proof the hard drive has gone bad. i guess the restore disks are the ultimate test for the hard drive--if they will not run, then the HDD is bad.