Help Toshiba laptop - blue screen (XP)

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Digs

120 posts

Master Geek

#26376 20-Sep-2008 17:31

HI,

I have a Toshiba laptop T3 ( i think ),
XP SP3

I recently had a blue screen experience.

I know how to fix xp on a desktop with the CD boot disks and the xp repair process.

But, the guy at the shop who sold me the laptop said laptops dont come with XP disks any more, its all on the laptop when you need to fix it. Well it better be !!!

Well I need to fix the Xp laptop and I dont have a CD XP boot disk.

Is there some function I run in the RUN command or to do I goto F12 and run something is SAFE MODE to run the XP repair software ?

I can run safe mode ok.

Any ideas ???

heavenlywild

5091 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 901

Trusted

#165983 21-Sep-2008 12:19

Many notebooks now don't come with recovery discs. However, within the OS, there should be a Toshiba application which allows you to create your own recovery discs.

Digs

120 posts

Master Geek

#166004 21-Sep-2008 12:56

Yes my laptop has that function, but I guess I need to do that before I get the blue screen !

So if I dont have recovery disks I guess I need to take it to the repair shop !!

heavenlywild

5091 posts

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+1 received by user: 901

Trusted

#166011 21-Sep-2008 13:10

Ah, I thought your blue screen only came up from time-to-time.

Take it to a Toshiba Authorised Service Agent and get it looked at.

38894

80 posts

Master Geek

#166018 21-Sep-2008 13:48

The first thing I recommend is turning OFF the automatic reboot on failure, you can do this by doing the following

Right click on my computer and go to properties

Go to the Advanced Tab

Startup and Recovery - Settings

Make sure the checkbox for "Automatically Restart" is NOT ticked.

This will make the blue screen stay on screen, allowing you to make a note of the error code being reported and find out what the issue is, causing the blue screen.

Most laptops these days come with a recovery partition installed, while you are booting up you may well have something come up on screen to prompt you if it's needed, on HP Laptops for example it has a quick 3 second option on boot up which says "Press F11 for recovery" and counts down from 3 to 0 before booting, not sure how this applies with Toshibas but it should be relatively obvious while looking for it.

You can check what partitions are defined on your laptop by doing the following:

Right click on my computer,

Go to Manage

Then in the box that pops up you'll see a whole list of things on the left hand side, choose the Disk Management option

This then displays a snap in on the right hand side of the window which shows all your physical drives and the partitions on them, if your main drive has a recovery partition it should show up in there and be relatively obvious as to whether it is a recovery partition or simply a Second Partition to make a data drive as well as having the main OS partition.

Please feel free to display more info here later such as the blue screen error or if you need help finding out where you have a recovery partition etc.

Digs

120 posts

Master Geek

#166063 21-Sep-2008 17:20

Thanks, but the laptop is not normal long enough for me do anything.

Its going to the shop Monday !

38894

80 posts

Master Geek

#166076 21-Sep-2008 19:08

Fair enough, you could probably save yourself a few $ though if you disabled the restart on failure option and try to fix the issue yourself.

You can also disable the automatic restart, on startup if the laptop just won't stay logged into windows for long enough. While the Laptops splash screen is loading you repeatedly hit F7 (Can be a different key on some laptops but from memory on the Toshibas it's still F7) and that will give you the option to disable auto-restart on that individual boot up, thus giving you the Blue Screen error code, and enabling you to find a way of fixing it, either in Safe Mode, via a Linux Live CD or a program called ERD commander which will allow you to boot up in a "Live CD Style" environment, but hooks into your Windows installation, allowing you to rollback updates, uninstall programs and make changes to the system etc including the option (If you've set any markers) for system restore to a previous state.

Hopefully the shop will be able to fix it for you though and won't be too costly.