Toshiba Laptop Restarts in Loop

Model: Toshiba Satellite M45 - S359 | Operating System is Windows XP

My laptop has suddenly gone awry. Upon powering up, it will arrive at the screen below (I shot the pic with a digital camera). No matter which option is chosen for starting Windows, it follows the same progression: It will advance to the Toshiba splash/welcome screen and then immediately revert to the previous screen with the start-up options.

I'm able to get into the BIOS, and I reset it to default settings in case they weren't properly configured, but it didn't make any difference in what happened on the boot-up.

I don't have an available Windows software disc or any recovery disc (can I make a recovery disc from my desktop that will work for this issue?).

Any insight or advice on what to do or how to proceed would be most welcome.

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Hi boogie. No you cannot use recovery discs from another computer for this computer. If it comes right down to it, you will need those discs. There is no other option. However, what you need to do at this point is to select "Start Windows Normally," press ENTER, and then IMMEDIATELY start pressing the F8 key quickly and repeatedly. You will get a second startup menu where you can select, "disable automatic restart on system failure." Choose that option. Now, instead of rebooting, your computer will display a blue screen providing more information about the failure. Take a screenshot of that and post it for further analysis.

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This is the blue screen that comes up after doing the instructions you provided.

Well this is certainly an easy problem to diagnose, but, unfortunately, a potentially difficult one to resolve.

The error means you have some type of file corruption on your hard disk. Because this is a laptop, it is quite likely that the problem is caused due to bad sectors on your hard drive or a failing hard drive all together.

So, before going further I must throw in my small disclaimer. If you have ANY important data on this hard drive such as sensitive documents or special photos, etc. you must ignore my instructions and take the computer to a qualified individual to recover the files from the hard drive asap, if possible. Continuing on with my instructions may make a failing hard drive worse and lessen any chance of successfully recovering data off the drive.

With that said, lets continue at your own risk.

You need to run a chkdsk on the drive. So, how do you do that? Well, you have to get to the windows XP recovery console. Please read this highly valuable post by one of my esteemed colleagues: http://forums.whatthetech.com/How_run_chkd…ole_t95574.html

Once you get into recovery console you will run the command: chkdsk /r

Observe messages about windows replacing bad clusters. These are the "bad sectors," as I mentioned earlier.

At the end of the scan (a lengthy one) you will get a small report. It will also list the number of bad clusters on the drive. Any number above 0 suggests possible drive failure.

Laptop hard drives are very susceptible to physical damage due to the amount of movement the laptops make and the drives are more delicate. It is likely you have a failing hard drive and will have to have it replaced. If that is the case you will need to order the original recovery discs from the computer manufacturer, or again, take it to a qualified shop that has the necessary disks to reinstall your OS.

If you have a small number of bad clusters, or none at all, it is possible you will not have any further trouble with this drive after running the chkdsk. When the chkdsk finishes, reboot your computer and it should boot normally now.