Toshiba laptop wont boot

[millertime]

looked around a lot online and never really found my specific problem.

I contracted one of the many fake antivirus trojans on my computer. I restarted so that i could boot in safe mode, use rkill and then run my antivirus to clean.

when restarting, my toshiba screen comes up, fans all whir including hd and cd, but the next screen is just blank witha blinking curser.

I can get to the startup menu by hitting F12, but not the safe mode menu or anything else.

i do not have a backup disc, i do have a free windows seven upgrade cd that came with the pc when i bought it, so i think i may be able to reinstall that via the boot menu and selecting cd, but i dont want to lose my hd if it isnt the problem in the first place.

possibilities? thanks

[vin24]

How many operating system are installed in your laptop?

[millertime]

Just one. windows xp, when i bought the computer it came withe a free upgrade to seven which came out like six months after i bought it, go the cd in the mail like 9 months after i bought it and just never installed because i had no issues with 4gb of ram etc with xp.

[mjdodd]

lots of possbilities but first suspect is the boot manager file is corrupt on the HD.
Next down the software line is corrupt windows file, or corrupt drivers
Could also be a hardware fault (video or mother board or HD )
could also be one I had a long time ago and that is font change so you get white on white (or black on black) can you right click on screen and get anything?
can you get hold of a boot disk (linux type is good) a

[mjdodd]

oops and see if you can boot from a linux live cd?
M

[millertime]

if windows is the problem, i can install windows 7. if i take the hd out and put it in an enclosure, what are the odds i can stuff off of it as long as the hd isnt dead, just corrupt windows?

[mjdodd]

I regularly use an enclosure (with its own electric supply and its own HD electgronics) and it connects as a usb and then, even if there are problems of the windows software, there should be no problem reading and copying data etc from the HD to the computer (this assumes two HDs one in enclosure one in computer)) If you reinstall windows before taking the data off the HD then that installation will overwrite your date (unless is is on another partition).
M

[allenbrian1]

just back-up your file and re-install your Operating System :) much easier than do lots of registry works and start-up set-ups.

[eposner]

I have a Toshiba Satellite and it is not booting. I hit F8 and go into Safe Mode, then it goes Loading Windows files and stops, soon after, the dreaded blue screen pops up. Argh, any suggestions. [e-mail]