Toshiba Satellite P875-S7102 - Will Not Boot

[budparker]

Let me start by saying "Thanks" for any assistance you may be able to provide.

This laptop is about 4 years old and I have packed it up twice a month all that time to fly it offshore to the Gulf of Mexico on a helicopter. I worked in the Oil industry on a drilling vessel. So, it has been through a lot of handling and banging around!

The Problem: It no longer boots. When I turn it on it does absolutely nothing. After I fiddled with it a bit I ran Active@ Boot Disk and got in that way. I could see the hard drive and the file structure, so I suppose it is not necessarily a hard drive problem unless any damage may just be on the boot partition. Also, I can't enter BIOS by pressing F2.

I have two new hard drives I could install. This laptop has two HD bays. One is a flash drive; a 120GB SSD Plus SanDisk that I’d like to use for the operating system to expedite booting. The other is a WD 1TB internal that I would use for installed programs and general storage.

I sent to the manufacturer, Toshiba, and got a USB Drive with all of the original software and drivers that was installed on this laptop. It is on a USB Drive. Would using this make a Clean Install and erase all my data? I would truly like to recover all the files on the original HD, if possible.

Whatcha think?

 

[IHolypaladin]

I don`t know what is on that manufacturers flash drive , so i can`t answer this. All i can say is your best options are to try to boot Ubuntu from a CD or flash drive.Ubuntu have a option to try OS without Installing it.
link: http/www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/try-ubuntu-before-you-install

2 things can happen :

1. ubuntu wont load , you have hardware problem , it that case >>>> Toshiba service
2. It loads , you can then search on google how to use Ubuntu and copy your data to external memory , then fresh instal windows.
end

 

[budparker]

I don`t know what is on that manufacturers flash drive , so i can`t answer this. All i can say is your best options are to try to boot Ubuntu from a CD or flash drive.Ubuntu have a option to try OS without Installing it.
link: http/www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/try-ubuntu-before-you-install

2 things can happen :

1. ubuntu wont load , you have hardware problem , it that case >>>> Toshiba service
2. It loads , you can then search on google how to use Ubuntu and copy your data to external memory , then flash instal windows.
end

 

[budparker]

The USB Stick I got from Toshiba contains all the factory installed software, so I presume it will completely restore the HD to original condition. I will use your advice and see what Umbuntu can do.

I can use Active@ Boot Disk and boot up the laptop and it shows the entire file structure. It also has a partition repair function. But, I'm not competent to say whether I should do that function. Would it wipe the drive? The selections are: Create, Delete, & Format Partitions.

Because I can access the C: drive and see the various folders can I assume my problem is not hardware related?

 

[IHolypaladin]

The USB Stick I got from Toshiba contains all the factory installed software, so I presume it will completely restore the HD to original condition. I will use your advice and see what Umbuntu can do.

I can use Active@ Boot Disk and boot up the laptop and it shows the entire file structure. It also has a partition repair function. But, I'm not competent to say whether I should do that function. Would it wipe the drive? The selections are: Create, Delete, & Format Partitions.

Because I can access the C: drive and see the various folders can I assume my problem is not hardware related?

I never used Active@ Boot Disk but , if you can boot OS from CD , that means that HDD is working correctly.
Other thing , it is really rare for partition to be corrupted , system files in partition might be.

Ok if you are using Active@ Boot Disk , load OS >> click on Start button >>Utilities>>Explore My Computer.
And then copy all importnat files you want to save , to External memory.(flash , SSD ,...)
Then we can experiment to fix windows , cause i can see that you have files you don`t want to lose.

Once again every error in PC can be hardware or software related , but it can be diagnosed.

 

[budparker]

The USB Stick I got from Toshiba contains all the factory installed software, so I presume it will completely restore the HD to original condition. I will use your advice and see what Umbuntu can do.

I can use Active@ Boot Disk and boot up the laptop and it shows the entire file structure. It also has a partition repair function. But, I'm not competent to say whether I should do that function. Would it wipe the drive? The selections are: Create, Delete, & Format Partitions.

Because I can access the C: drive and see the various folders can I assume my problem is not hardware related?

I never used Active@ Boot Disk but , if you can boot OS from CD , that means that HDD is working correctly.
Other thing , it is really rare for partition to be corrupted , system files in partition might be.

Ok if you are using Active@ Boot Disk , load OS >> click on Start button >>Utilities>>Explore My Computer.
And then copy all importnat files you want to save , to External memory.(flash , SSD ,...)
Then we can experiment to fix windows , cause i can see that you have files you don`t want to lose.

Once again every error in PC can be hardware or software related , but it can be diagnosed.

Sounds good to me. I shall do that and reply again when "Mission Complete!"