My Toshiba Satellite S50D-A laptop is stuck in a boot loop before finishing POST

[Kerma]

My Toshiba Satellite S50D-A laptop is stuck in a boot loop before POST finishes- All that shows up is the "TOSHIBA" screen before turning off and restarting the process. It is fairly new, got it for christmas 2 years ago- and I've experienced a few problems with it bluescreening but not frequent enough to say it's broken (and reading up on it, people seem to have similar issues) and while I was drawing with a tablet the computer locked up in sleep mode and upon hard restart (holding down the power button) it locked into this boot loop. I really really hope I didn't lose everything as there is a lot of personal data on this laptop and I have no idea what the issue could be. I'm not very experienced in PC repair, but I know my way around a computer.

Windows 8.1, minimal software installed, no prior issues except for occasional bluescreens and lockups (which seems common on this model from reading reviews) and computer ran fine

I do not know if I'm still on warranty but we're currently checking, not sure if I should do anything that would potentially void it in the meantime

 

[Louise Porkolt]

Hi there,

before disassembling your laptop always check for warranty !!

Not that you'll have to open it, but you should check for dust in the airways for starting the troubleshoot !!!
just blow with an air compressor while holding the fan BLOCKED with a toothpick (plastic or wood, DO NOT USE iron tools !! Blocking the fan prevents the motor to work as generator and produce a current that can burn some circuits inside the MOBO).
BLOW the dust as much as possible out of the airway in both directions (preferably outside as it isn't healthy to do this in your bedroom ;-) .


Let us know what the result is, we'll continue from there !
Cheers, Louise.

 

[Kerma]

We took it in and got the harddrive hooked up to another computer and ran a chkdsk. Seems like it was a corrupted partition of sorts, it runs perfectly fine now. Kind of scary it got corrupted after only two years of use, will back up my stuff on it in case it happens again.

 

[Louise Porkolt]

This means that the disk is reaching it's EOL ! (end of life).
average lifespan of most components is 3 years depending on the use of it !

I would clone the disk to a new one ! (SSD is even better for the speed.)
In a special cradle it takes 10 min's to 2 hours depending on the size of the disk.

Good luck,
Cheers, Louise.

 

[hackintosh777]

This means that the disk is reaching it's EOL ! (end of life).
average lifespan of most components is 3 years depending on the use of it !

I would clone the disk to a new one ! (SSD is even better for the speed.)
In a special cradle it takes 10 min's to 2 hours depending on the size of the disk.

Good luck,
Cheers, Louise.

Doesn't mean that the HDD is shot. Windows does f*** some things up like partitions sometimes.

 

[Louise Porkolt]

Nobody is flawless, even windows or Linux and all other OS's (I forgot Mac...) have their issues !

and Corrupt sectors usually do means that the Harddrive gets close to it's end !

Harddrives should be cloned and replaced after an average of 4 years ! Some last longer some brake earlier !

Cheers, Louise.