Laptop won't load Windows Vista anymore

[jadedkitten]

This is my first laptop, came with Vista preinstalled. There is no recovery disc.

I tried shutting down normally earlier, and it got stuck. I was in a hurry to leave the house, so I took the battery out, so that it would shut off. I replaced the battery (same battery) a few seconds later.

Turned the laptop back on hours later, and it goes through the Toshiba screen, then the Microsoft screen like it's going to load Windows...then it just gives me a grey screen and nothing happens. I've let it go so long that the screen goes black, still nothing.

I've shut it down and tried again several times in the last few hours. Nothing.

Windows wanted to do an update before I shut it down the first time, and I put it off to the "4 hour" mark, because I didn't have time for the update to load, etc.

It's a Toshiba Satellite L305-S5921, about 6 months old--daily use of 5-6 hours straight; usually plugged in. The fan is running, the proper lights are all on, the disc drive runs (I put a disc in to see if it would start the program setup, nothing showed on the screen).

I really need to use it ASAP. Thank you!

[kaninelupus]

Sounds like the boot-log corrupted. I don't see why you don't have recovery-disk for your notebook... Toshiba ALWAYS provide a recovery disk, unless something drastic has very recently changed. Sure you didn't throw it out with the original box??

[stvrich]

Do you have a floppy drive built into the laptop? Do you have a Bootable Floppy disk? And will it BOOT to that floppy, if you try it?
--OR-- do you have any kind of bootable cd? When the laptop first starts, do you get an option (or option'S') to press "del" or 'Fx' to go into a setup screen? And if so, you may be able to set/reset options so that it definitely boots to cd (or Floppy) first. IF you can do that maybe you'll be able to run some type of diagnostic from removable media.

[stvrich]

I'm just guessing but...
IF you can boot to an outside media (like cd) you MIGHT be able to run XP recovery from the C: drive (if the XP setup files are ON the c-drive)?

is this a possibility?
b/c IF you CAN run xp setup from hard drive files, it SHOULD give you a "recovery" option to fix your system (IF it's system files and not a BIOS or true hardware problem). Like if a virus trashed your system.

[stvrich]

(sorry I said 'XP', I meant ... VISTA)

[jadedkitten]

Sounds like the boot-log corrupted. I don't see why you don't have recovery-disk for your notebook... Toshiba ALWAYS provide a recovery disk, unless something drastic has very recently changed. Sure you didn't throw it out with the original box??

No, I still have the box and everything that came in it. I don't see a disc anywhere. When I try to start in any of the Safe Mode features, it stops loading at

Windows\System32\drivers\crcdisk.sys

Thanks for your help. I will tear the house apart looking for the disc...maybe I missed seeing it, and one of the kids picked it up.

[jadedkitten]

Do you have a floppy drive built into the laptop? Do you have a Bootable Floppy disk? And will it BOOT to that floppy, if you try it? --OR-- do you have any kind of bootable cd? When the laptop first starts, do you get an option (or option'S') to press "del" or 'Fx' to go into a setup screen? And if so, you may be able to set/reset options so that it definitely boots to cd (or Floppy) first. IF you can do that maybe you'll be able to run some type of diagnostic from removable media.

If there's a disc for it, I didn't see it when I opened the box. (it's 6 months old, and I kept everything that came in the box...and box itself)

I have my Win XP disc from my old PC, when I upgraded from whatever old OS it came with. The laptop came with Vista, though.

When it starts, it gives me two options to get to the Boot menu, F2 and F12. I don't know what to do in either one, I've tried them both. Neither shows anything for recovery, as far as I can see.

[kaninelupus]

Have you contacted Toshiba in regards to missing recovery disk? Even if they charge a small postage fee, would allow you to hopefully perform a repair rather than looking at an entire fresh install (either XP or from a newly purchased Visa disk) - would also save you having to DL all the drivers and installing them all manually (which could prove over-whelming if not experienced in this).

Would honestly say contacting Toshiba to get a recovery disk should be the first thing to try.

[jadedkitten]

Have you contacted Toshiba in regards to missing recovery disk? Even if they charge a small postage fee, would allow you to hopefully perform a repair rather than looking at an entire fresh install (either XP or from a newly purchased Visa disk) - would also save you having to DL all the drivers and installing them all manually (which could prove over-whelming if not experienced in this).

Would honestly say contacting Toshiba to get a recovery disk should be the first thing to try.

Thanks for the advice. Someone on another forum suggested I utilize the F8 menu, and I did...none of their "fixes" worked, but I see that there is a built-in "Recovery Wizard" that does not require a disk to use. It's my last chance before having to order a disk from Toshiba, I guess. If that doesn't work, I will have no choice but to call them.

I can't believe that after all this time that Vista has been out, there is not more information on Microsoft's website about how to fix this. You can't imagine how many complaints I saw, on numerous forums, about this very same problem. No wonder everyone seems to hate Vista!

Thank you all again.

[Suspishio]

If you have a folder on, say an F: drive called "HDDRecovery", then when you press F8 on booting as the Toshiba screen is displayed, then the Advanced Boot Options menu should appear. The Repair your computer option should then be able to use the recovery folder.

As you haven't explained how your efforts didn't fix the problem, we can't really judge what's happeining.

If you don't have a HDDrevovery folder, then youy need to get a Vista DVD from somewhere, boot from it into the recovery console and fix your system from there.

[kaninelupus]

I can't believe that after all this time that Vista has been out, there is not more information on Microsoft's website about how to fix this. You can't imagine how many complaints I saw, on numerous forums, about this very same problem. No wonder everyone seems to hate Vista!

Um, information on what...?? The boot issue (which are almost always attributable to either Malware or shi1tty hardware... neither of which are MS's fault), or the lack of a boot-disk (again, not MS's fault - is the responsibility of the OEM to provide that).

If MS stuffs something up, by all means, rant about it - but just be sure what you are blaming them for is even their fault!