Posted: 5/22/2008 3:53:52 PM EDT
| I dropped my Toshiba laptop and now it won't work. I restart the computer and a black screen pops up stating that the computer shutdown improperly and to restart in safe mode. So when I try to restart it, it just keeps coming up to the same screen, and it trys to restart itself but it won't boot up.....wtf?? |
My comp wouldn't get past the black screen after I uninstalled some program a while ago. There might be an option for "Start in last known good configuration" , which worked for me. |
I tried that too, just comes back to the same screen!! |
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My son dropped my wife's Toshiba and it has never been the same. It hangs sometimes when booting and believe it or not...a swift hit or two actually makes it continue. Sometimes when it boots or after a restart, the screen is considerably smaller and skewed, but after shutting down for some time it will boot up normal. Sounds like if you can't get it to boot with a cd...time for a new one. I ended up with a MacBook Pro and my wife got a cheap Sony Vaio. It's a shame because I kind of liked the Toshiba, I still have it and use it once and awhile but I wouldn't trust it as an everyday computer anymore. |
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Constant reboot? The drop did not do your hard drive any good. Possible damage even. If it were in my hands, I would pull the drive, use my 2.5" to 3.5" adapter and hook it to my desktop. If I could see the data, I would save it and run the disk checking utility. Lots of bad stuff could have happened. |
If you dropped it while it was running, you probably trashed a part of the disk with a head crash. If you can boot off a OS cd, you might be able to use the recovery console to re-image your disk. Other approaches if you need to save some data on the disk: -Reinstall OS on a separate partition from your current installation. You should be able to access the current damaged partition provided that the crash only affected the old system installation. -Buy a new hard drive and transfer files by using old disk as a slave drive. |
It is most likely a hardware problem, but I have seen many boot files/swap files corrupted due to a power outage and a few drops. Before ditching the drive, a format and reinstall should be tried. |
Try to reinstall the OS. I had a guy bring me a laptop that was flung out of his car (he was using it in the back seat) at 55mph when a semi ran them off the road. The was a 1" divot in the CD-Rom where a rock had stopped it. He duck taped the battery back in, turned it on and used it the rest of his trip. If you did damage the hard drive, you will know quickly. |
This is a perfect example of what I'd guess as hard drive damage after a drop. Keep an eye on NewEgg and Tigerdirect for a deep sale on a laptop hard drive, that may be all it takes to get that laptop back to useful. |
Okay. First up: Low level format of your hard disk. You will probably have to find a utility from the manufacturer to do this. A low level format of your hard disk will map out bad blocks on your disk, and prevent them from being used. Your disk may physically damaged, in which case it will need to be replaced; But a low level format is free and just takes up time, so if the drop wasn't that severe it probably just trashed some OS files. Next reinstall the OS. If you made it through the low level format, the disk is probably O.K., so installation should go alright. If it installs well, run it through its paces to see if anything else is wrong - if your laptop is something that you need to be dependable to a fault, I'd consider buying a new disk if you get the box up and going again. |
how does he run a diagnostic/utility if his box is hosed? |
Boot off a floppy. Most of the disk utilities come with some form of DOS so the machine can boot. |
