Clean install on Toshiba Laptop

Are you sure that the HDD isn't toast? Use your installation media to boot into the recovery environment and run fixmbr in the recovery console.

smckeown777 , just tried that and its the same thing nothing loads either from the internet drive or the external even when i set it to boot from these.

jornak, yep its a new drive actually "clean" as the last one failed..  installation itself is failing as i cant even get the OS to load.

CD working on another machine - booting I mean?
On the laptop I assume you have a DVD drive? Not just a CD drive? Windows 7 is a DVD and obviously won't boot using a CD drive...

Ok, what exactly happens? Are you getting any indication that its trying to boot from the CD?

Are you getting the 'Press any key to boot from CD' part at least?

Have you possibly a Windows XP CD to test boot from - just trying to narrow the issue down somehow, if the laptop boots from another CD we can say the hardware is fine at least...

***** for (smckeown777) *****
when i have the external drive attached and I start up the laptop it goes to the Toshiba splash screen that says:

Toshiba Innovation press F2 to go to setup utility, F12 to go to boot manager

then goes to black screen

and it hangs a little at the black screen with a cursor flashing for about 15 seconds..

Then it shows the following:

intel UNDI, PXE-2.0 (build 083)
Copyright (C) 1997-2000 Inter Corporation

For Atheros PCIE Ethernet Controller v2.0.1.9(12/15/09)

Check cable connection!
PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel PXE ROM.
No bootable device - - insert boot disk and press any key

I just booted another laptop with the external DVDdrive and then proceeded to use its internet DVD/ROM drive to test it and it worked fine, it has to be the laptop maybe cheap components?? lol.....


**** for (chesperito) ****
Laptop is set to boot from DVD/ROM and now im noticing that the external isnt showing up

will try the bootcd from that link and report back

OK I decided to use and Windows XP CD to see if it was just DVD's that weren't being loaded up.
Upon boot up with the win XP CD in the Drive it found that and begun to load the XP OS without any problems, but now when i cancelled that and put in the DVD for Win7 it did nothing(again)  So could it be that it cant read the DVD's but can read CD's?



1) Is there any drivers that you guys can think of that would allow it to run the external DVD Drive? because it seems as if that's my only hope as its not showing in the BIOS now that i check.

you can test that by making a bootable dvd (on a working pc) - and also tst that DVD to be sure it is ok
but to answer your question : yes it is possible that it works on CD - and not on DVD
reason : many use different laser and ordriver circuitry for CD and DVD

Well guys, I ended up setting up a flash drive and using that to boot windows from and was successful in installing the OS on the Laptop..

Thanks for the help, now I need a vote on awarding the points as so many have assisted me on this journey lol.

you can distribute points over the helpful posts - as you like

Im confused, how did this go from me accepting multiple solutions to now being a request to close this question???

god knows !!

I object to this closure of the question.

I found another solution but these experts were helpful.