Toshiba A500 OS boot stall

[meridius21]

OK, I have had numerous issues with this laptop most of which are not fun and have required a few late nights.

First the internal screen and lcd cable were replaced. The default screen size should normally be 16" but this is not available where I live so we settled with a 15.6" Samsung model. Then the HDD was replaced with a new 1TB WD Laptop Internal HDD (WD10JPVX). Afterwards I upgraded the BIOS to the latest version (2.0) by Phoenix SecureCore Tiano.

My first attempt to install the recovery disks failed with an error message ("Windows requires a digitally signed driver" - Driver: LPCFilter). This was done before the BIOS upgrade, which was the last change to take place. I tried this twice with no luck. (n.b. the changes took place in this order: 1. New Screen and LCD Cable, 2. New HDD, 3. BIOS upgrade).

Before the BIOS upgrade I then just used a Windows 7 retail disk (not the recovery ones) and had a failure relating to this: <<Windows Cannot Be Installed to This Disk. This Computer's Hardware May not Support Booting to This Disk>> when trying to create partitions.

I then found and followed the instructions relating to BIOS changes on Error 4 of this link: http/ I therefore changed the SATA Controller Mode to 'Compatibility' rather than 'AHCI'. I have now managed to install Windows 7 using the retail disk and add the drivers manually but the laptop's booting is erratic. Sometimes I need to go to F8 and "Repair Your Computer" just to boot or even do this with the Windows 7 retail disk.

After the Toshiba boot screen showing F12 and F2 options there appears a small white line on the top left of the screen. If this doesn't go away then I have to hard boot and see what happens or take the F8 (Advanced Boot options) route and and "Repair Your Computer".

Perhaps the advice to change the SATA Controller Mode to Compatibility has created additional problems in relation to booting and/or the new HDD has some security feature which is built in and blocked both the recovery disks in terms of the digitally signed driver problem and is now creating problems in terms of booting. I had no problems installing the operating system on the original HDD.

To sum up, my guess is that I have been having these problems as it is something to do with the new HDD and/or a BIOS setting.

I'd be happy for any useful advice!..

 

[meridius21]

I'm going to answer the core of this which is related to the installation. The drive I used was a WD10JPVX which is AF (Advanced Format). Looking at this post you will see that the solution is to only use a non-AF HDD which I did and have now installed the recovery disks with no problem in normal AHCI mode: http/

The only problem I now have is fluctuations in the screen brightness although that may be something to do with the potentially incompatible new screen or some other issue that needs to be investigated.