asked on Win7 No Boot Options
I have a neighbors laptop (Toshiba Satellite, Win7, i5) that was left in a car in very cold temperatures which resulted in condensation on the hard drive...so she says.
Now it will not boot up. Boots to a black screen with a cursor and then just a black screen.
I've backed up her important data. Ran a repair while connected to my computer...no help.
Booted to a Win7 disc and ran a Startup Repair...no help.
Booted to disc and ran System Restore twice, with different dates and still no help.
Any ideas?
Thanks in advance!
I just noticed out of the corner of my eye, it rebooted by itself and back to the same screen it stops on.
P.S. pressing F8 does not present any boot options.
Now it will not boot up. Boots to a black screen with a cursor and then just a black screen.
I've backed up her important data. Ran a repair while connected to my computer...no help.
Booted to a Win7 disc and ran a Startup Repair...no help.
Booted to disc and ran System Restore twice, with different dates and still no help.
Any ideas?
Thanks in advance!
I just noticed out of the corner of my eye, it rebooted by itself and back to the same screen it stops on.
P.S. pressing F8 does not present any boot options.
Windows 7
Last Comment
philw3995
You can try this workaround as a last option
Its a bit risky and will not work in 100%
1. delete bootcat.cashe from C:\windows\system32\codein
the file is 384 bytes when broken , is 2,344,056 when OK. is beeing recreated when booting.
2. copy from a ok pc c:\windows\system32\catroo
3. restart.
Or if you backed up all the data you can just format and re install the OS
Its a bit risky and will not work in 100%
1. delete bootcat.cashe from C:\windows\system32\codein
the file is 384 bytes when broken , is 2,344,056 when OK. is beeing recreated when booting.
2. copy from a ok pc c:\windows\system32\catroo
3. restart.
Or if you backed up all the data you can just format and re install the OS
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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I am suspecting that there is some hardware issues which needs to diagnosed first before going to OS options.
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William Peck
Is there a diagnostic partition the system allows you to boot into to run Toshiba diags? I know Dell includes one on all their systems.
ASKER
Thank you for all of the great suggestions!!! I'll be working on that computer tonight and will get back to you asap.
Here's a great website on how to fix the bootloader.
http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/Recovering+the+Windows+Bootloader+from+the+DVD
Go down to option two, and option three if necessary.
A lot of times, a rootkit infection can cause this kind of behavior. If you have the hard drive pulled, run TDSSKiller externally.
http://support.kaspersky.com/5350
The only two options that matter when running externally is 'Boot Sectors' and 'Detect TDLFS File System'. You can select these by clicking on 'Change parameters'.
http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/Recovering+the+Windows+Bootloader+from+the+DVD
Go down to option two, and option three if necessary.
A lot of times, a rootkit infection can cause this kind of behavior. If you have the hard drive pulled, run TDSSKiller externally.
http://support.kaspersky.com/5350
The only two options that matter when running externally is 'Boot Sectors' and 'Detect TDLFS File System'. You can select these by clicking on 'Change parameters'.
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ASKER
Changed Hard Drive from AHCI to Compatibility Mode and it worked. Also had ran windows system restore which completed successfully but think the Hard Drive setting was the fix.
Thank you all, especially rindi
Thank you all, especially rindi
Glad we could help.
ASKER
This was the solution: "It is also possible your BIOS settings changed from IDE mode to to SATA or AHCI mode, so check if there are any such settings and play around with them."
I changed the setting from AHCI to Compatibility.
I changed the setting from AHCI to Compatibility.
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rwheeler23
It sounfs like her boot sector took a hit. Since you already backed up her data, the nest solution is probably a clean reinstall.