Toshiba Equium L300

Hi, I am looking at a friends L300 and it begins to boot Vista and gives the 'WINDOWS ERROR RECOVERY' window. When you continue with the repair option the laptop then continues to 'load the windows files' and moves onto the next part which shows Microsoft Corparation with the loading bar. After about 40 to 50 seconds everything stops. I have purchased a recovery disk (as the owner does not have one/did not create one) from Toshiba using the serial number on the base PSLB2E-003004KS. When I load from the recovery disk I get exactly the same result as above. Any help would be appreciated, thanks for reading. Andrew ..

Hi,
Make sure his back up/copy/archive is 100% accurate, up to date, reproducible and kept safe on removable media….. before taking any action.
If you need any help on this (Using a Linux live disc to copy off important files to USB drive for example) let us know and we'll post full instructions.
Next take a look here:
http://en.kioskea.net/forum/affich-58528-r…actory-settings
let us know how you get on
Regards
paws

Hi Paws, Thanks for this reply and apologies for the delay in replying to you. I cannot do a back up of any sort as I cannot get booted up. I have tried the information from the link sent and follwed it through a couple of times. The only option that I get is 'Launch Startup Repair (recommended)' and from here I get the same result as previously discribed. Thanks again

Hi Ok, I understand. Before you proceed further do you need instructions on how to do a back up when Windows won't start?…..if so post back and I'll send you detailed instructions.(These will include the detailed steps necessary when you cannot boot your machine into Windows) Once everything that's important is safely copied off to removable media, then we can go further with the repair. This may destroy any data or files that may still be on the hard drive or may even involve fitting a new hard drive….. thats why the back up is so important and must take priority over anything else. Regards paws

Hi Paws, Thanks for speedy reply. A little story…. As I have a little more free time at the moment I decided to have a look at some of the BIOS settings and change a few settings (noting the changes so I could go back) to see if any thing worked. I noticed that the SATA controller was set to AHCI mode and that the other option was Comaptability mode so I changed this out of curiosity and the laptop immediately went to the repair window and then booted fully into windows. I am now udating and adding security which did not exist. I am not technicaaly savvy enough to know why this worked, but I am very pleased that it is. Do you have any idea? I believe that AHCI should work, cannot see that any one wouild have gone in and made the change, but you never know…. Thanks again for your help. Best wishes Andrew

Hi, well done on getting it going.
Its perfectly possible to run a SATA hard drive in compatibility mode, the differerence in performance is likely to be pretty small, and its not necessary to install the special SATA driver that's necessary with some motherboards for Windows to be able to use the drive.
This can be useful as the recommended method of installing the SATA driver is from floppy disk……..these days lots of folks don't have a floppy disc drive so workarounds have to be used that can sometimes be a bit time consuming……

The important thing to remember is that its no good trying to switch between Compatibility mode and regular AHCI mode on the fly…it just won't work without a reinstall of Windows………You will just get a error message…Like the one you have been getting!….. or the BSOD if you try…..

It seems by altering the BIOS back to what it was previously (when the machine was working OK) has solved the problem for you.

Now just a word about back ups……. your back up/archive/copy of all your important stuff was 100% accurate up to date reproducible and kept safe on separate media ……..wasn't it ?…….
It might be a wise time now you machine is working well to back up everything (including Windows itself) using disc imaging software……. Ghost, Paragon and Acronis disc imaging software is good, but usually has to be paid for, free software is available …see here for details…
http://www.thefreecountry.com/utilities/backupandimage.shtml
Regards
paws