Loadingt Windows XP using Toshiba Recovery CD

[AlexPilot]

Hi I am having a problem with a toshina A200 where im doing a format of the hard drive and using the recovery CD to load it again. The CD copies its files to the hard drive, asks you to eject the media then click okay. I click okay and the laptop powers down, i power it on again and the windows xp blue screens and restars and just goes through this loop. I cannot get XP to install because the files are lost once it powers down. I cant use my XP cd because it cannot detect the hard drive through the XP gui install.

any ideas?

[PeterW]

Check if there is a BIOS option to disable AHCI or set the SATA mode to IDE.

[AlexPilot]

Check if there is a BIOS option to disable AHCI or set the SATA mode to IDE.

There is not im afraid

[PeterW]

You could use something like nLite to slipstream the required mass storage drivers into your own XP CD.

I'm not sure why the recovery CD would not be working, did the machine come with XP on it or did it come with Vista and the XP downgrade CD?

[AlexPilot]

You could use something like nLite to slipstream the required mass storage drivers into your own XP CD.

I'm not sure why the recovery CD would not be working, did the machine come with XP on it or did it come with Vista and the XP downgrade CD?

With XP and im using the CD it came with, just doesnt load up the windows installation once it has copied the files.

[HallX]

I think there is an option in BIOS. Look under the Advanced tab, down to Sata Controller Mode, and change this to "Compatability". I seem to recall having a similar issue myself. Then again I may have dreamed it :-D

[AlexPilot]

Under advanced the only options are
Legacy USB
Bit Capability
Built in LAN
Wake up LAN
Wake up keyboard
Critical battery

[HallX]

Justed checked, it was an A300 Satellite Pro we had issues with, sorry.

[TechSupp]

Funny this should crop up but had a similar problem although I can't remember which Sat Pro it was, only about 12-18months old. Reported as not loading, missing vital files etc although I only ever got it to start loading then auto reboot. Did the same as you and used the recover CD, restarted and hey presto, off it went blue screen and restart again, over and over. Passed it back to teacher (it was not a school laptop) and said its under warranty, I suggest you give them a ring. Not fixed but I do have other jobs. Aany way as far as I know its been picked up for repair. Wonder if its some hardware failure? Too coincidental?

[contink]

Could be that the hard drive has bad sectors or is fubar... Just a WAG (wild assed guess).

[goaliepride]

hit F8 while windows is about to load, it will ask you for safe mode/etc, hit "do not automatically restart" it will now give a blue screen that actually has descriptive information about why things are failing.

try a different hard drive, try using only one stick of RAM

[mac_shinobi]

somewhere in the bios there is a sata mode option and I think the setting the above post is reffering to is setting this to IDE mode and then trying to use the xp disc.

Short of that RIS or WDS it ?

Also as per above I think you can press F6 to load specific storage drivers which you load by a floppy disc or as again above using nlite to intergrate the storage drivers into a newly created xp disc.

The original disc - is it damaged in anyway ie scratches or thumb prints or marks on the disc that would stop it from loading any relevant parts to the hard drive ?

Also if you press ctrl + alt + delete to do a soft reboot as apposed to a hard one ( ie power it off and back on ) does that help at all ?

Also if you do disable automatic reboot via the F8 menu and get the BSOD ( blue screen of death ) if you post back with exactly what it says it will probably point out the culprit as per above again.

Is this laptop under warranty ? Just thinking maybe you could call Toshiba and get a replacement recovery disc ?

[Michael]

You could use something like nLite to slipstream the required mass storage drivers into your own XP CD.

I can confirm you do need to do this. Using a standard CD, even with XP SP3 will not find the hard disk otherwise.

The restore disc would include the driver, so I would say (more than likely) it's hardware related; either memory or the hard disk itself. I'd recommend you swap parts with another A200 and find the source of the problem.

[Gibbo]

You'll need to put the SATA disk drivers onto a floppy disk and then when you install Windows from your Windows CD (not the Toshiba one) press F6 to select.

I've uploaded mine here:

http://nwex.co.uk/downloads/toshsata.zip (300Kb)

They're a pretty generic set, you may need to work your way through them.