Re: Windows unable to boot - 'black' screen

Thanks for the feedback. I'm a little dismayed at the price you paid
for your USB case. It may have been "Best Buy" for you but where
I live they cost only around US$20.00 for a 2.5" disk.

"Rich" <Rich@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:2ABB5E66-E8EF-4C4E-AA4C-486B0471E7EF@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Well, it appears that my Toshiba Satellite is back in business - thanks to
your, Pegasus and Malke, suggestions, and I was able to salvage all
important
data from the hard drive, to 'boot' - :).
As Malke suggested, I purchased the USB hard disk enclosue ($55 at Best
Buy), which allowed me to attach the disk from the 'bad' pc to my other
laptop. I then transferred all documents from that disk, first to my
'good'
PC, and then to an external disk. Finally, after removing the bad memory,
I
restored Windows on the Toshiba laptop, utilizing the Windows Restore disk
provided by Toshiba (but unfortunately wiping all the data in the process
..:(), I copied all documents back to my Toshiba from the external disk.
In addition, I ran the available diagnostics for my hard drive (CHKDSK and
those provided by Windows) and found several bad sectors, although none
had
critical errors (as per messages).
I already contacted Kingston and they are sending me a replacement for the
bad memory module - thanks to the lifetime warranty.
Of course, I immediately backed up my system to the external drive - a
lesson learned!

Thanks again for all the help - it definitely was an 'interesting' and eye
opening experience.

Rich


"Malke" wrote:

Rich wrote:
Well, now I'm in the Recovery Console and again I'm being stumped by
the
Admin Password.
I previously checked with Toshiba and they insisted that no passwords
of any
kind were set by them, and since I also didn't set any, this password
request
must then be coming from the Windows CD supplied by Dell (which I'm
using to
load Windows).
Any thoughts how to get over this hurdle?


Thanks again for 'screwing my head on right' by insisting that this is
a
hardware issue.
Following your suggestion, I attempted some basic diagnostics ( I'm
somewhat
'handy', even though one could not tell by reading my posts) by first
removing the battery, then the hard disk, and finally one of the
memory cards
and ... eureka! - I'm back in business.
Well, not totally, I'm still getting the: "STOP: C0000218" error, but
at
least I'm, past that dreaded black screen now.
I now will concentrate on researching the above error and if you (or
anyone)
would have any other good suggestions here, then - by all means, I
would
definitely welcome and appreciate any help.
Richie

Pegasus has pretty well covered that this may be a hardware issue. I see
some other things happening here that haven't been covered, though. So
here are my thoughts (Pegasus, I hope you don't mind me popping in):

1. Test the hard drive with a diagnostic utility downloaded from the
drive mftr. If you don't know the drive mftr., Seagate's SeaTools
Desktop works very well. You will create a bootable CD with the file you
download and you need third-party burning software to do this. The
built-in XP burning program is not capable of doing this. If the drive
fails any physical tests, it needs to be replaced.

1a. If the drive fails any physical tests, it will probably not be
possible to retrieve data from it. If the data is crucial and cost is
not an issue, you should send the drive to a professional data recovery
company such as Drive Savers (www.drivesavers.com). Costs start at
around $500 USD and go up from there. Only you can determine the value
of your data. If the drive is failing, every time you spin it up you are
at high risk of destroying data, so stop what you are doing if you want
to get the data back.

1b. If the hard drive does not fail any physical tests, put it in a USB
drive enclosure and attach to a working computer to pull the data off.

Standard caveat: If you can't do the testing yourself because you don't
have the skills and/or equipment, take the machine to a professional
computer repair shop (not your local equivalent of
BigComputerStore/GeekSquad).

2. There is no reason for you to be in the Recovery Console because
there is nothing useful you're going to be able to do from there. So
don't waste your time with it.

3. Most Dell XP CDs are BIOS-locked and will fail if they don't find a
Dell BIOS. Since you have a Toshiba, the CD will not find a Dell BIOS.
Assuming that the hard drive is physically sound (which is an assumption
that you shouldn't make yet), you will need to do any repairs with a
generic OEM XP CD that matches the version installed (XP Home, Pro, or
Media Center).


Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User



.

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