Comments on: I keep getting PXE-E61 Media test failure error on laptop start up

By: stephen

stephen — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 06:36:24 +0000

hello guys had the same problem. tried everthing in the forums but didnt work for me. BUT I NOTICED ONE THING. IN THE HARD DRIVE BAY AT THE BOTTOM WHICH WAS THE (ASPIRE 5315) I WAS REPAIRING FOR A FRIEND. THERE ARE TWO TABS (DEPENDING ON WHICH LAPTOP YOU HAVE) I TAPED THEM DOWN WITH 2 PIECES OF DUCK TAPE AND THE ERROR WENT AWAY. AFTER ALL THAT TIME. THE HARDRIVE BAY WAS THE PROBLEM.

By: Elaine

Elaine — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 13:24:07 +0000

I bought my Toshiba satellite one month ago and started having this problem two days ago. So far shutting it off turning it over and hitting the back a few times gets it going. I read that others have done this and it has worked for them.

By: Johnnie

Johnnie — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 23:23:35 +0000

Hi, my name is Johnnie, and When I turn on my laptop, it starts normally, displaying the TOSHIBA start screen, and about a minute later, at the top it reads as follows:

Intel (R) Boot Agent GE v1. 2. 31
Copyright (C) 1997-2005, Intel Corporation
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel Boot Agent.
Operating System not found

Is there any troubleshooting method to correct this problem??

By: doug huber

doug huber — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 11:14:52 +0000

OK LISTEN EVERYONE,…..

EVERYONE HAS HAD THE SAME OR SIMILIAR PROBLEM,…YES? ,..YET if YOU READ everyone has a DIFFERENT THING THAT WORKED FOR IT ,….OK well i am here with ANSWERS for you ALL ,…1st TAKE THE THING APART AGAIN
VERY CAREFULLY ,…TOUCH METAL FIRST ,…DISCHARGE STATIC,….now unplug and plug in the hardrive A FEW TIMES,…as with any set of CONTACTS putting them together and taking them apart and reataching them “SCRATCHES” the contacts so they make GOOD CONTACT,….this COULD BE THE PROBLEM FOR ALL OF YOU,…..NEXT make SURE YOU PUT EACH AND EVERY SCREW BACK ,…AND THE CORRECT SCREW IN THE CORRECT HOLE,…..this matters because there are GROUNDS that need GOOD contact ,….ok not saying ANYONES an IDIOT HERE because i am A+ N+ MCSE NOVELL CISCO BLA BLA BLKAAAA certified ,…. and guess what THIS WHOLE THING HAPPENED TO MEEEEE ,..so this is why i am saying take it apart touch metal always reassemble it make sure all the stuff is SEATED and fully inserted screws have to be snug for good grounding and change the order of the boot to 1> CDROM 2> HARDRIVE and disable the network and the “OTHER” choice in the bios save that and exit reboot and your machine should see the harddrive whne you go back into the bios will have a little + or just have the name of the drive in there HOPE THIS HELPS AS I AM NO SMARTER THAN THE NEXT GUY but just tryin to HELP OUT thanks and take care dougie

By: jp nic

jp nic — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:25:30 +0000

I had the same problem. When I open the BIOS I cant see the hard disk on info screen. there is no specified on master or slave.

By: Augusto Ilian

Augusto Ilian — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 23:32:18 +0000

You have 2 problems, first remove the battery and try to work conected only to A/C, if that does not correct the problem you will need to change the battery and the hard disk

By: Laptop Freak

Laptop Freak — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 21:06:15 +0000

Dennis,

I have an older Toshiba Satellite M35X that repeatedly displays the following message when I turn the laptop on:

For Realtek RTL 8139(X) / 8130 / 810X PCI Fast Ethernet Controller
PXE-E61: Media Test Failure, Check Cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting PXE ROM

This message only started happening when I put a new HDD in (the last one crashed). My BIOS reads the new HDD and my DVD-ROM drive, but I cannot even boot my system off the DVD-ROM and install Windows.

You see this message because the hard drive is blank and has no operating system installed. Find a new DVD drive and run the recovery disc. Install Windows on the hard drive.

By: Dennis

Dennis — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 00:58:01 +0000

I have an older Toshiba Satellite M35X that repeatedly displays the following message when I turn the laptop on:

For Realtek RTL 8139(X) / 8130 / 810X PCI Fast Ethernet Controller
PXE-E61: Media Test Failure, Check Cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting PXE ROM

This message only started happening when I put a new HDD in (the last one crashed). My BIOS reads the new HDD and my DVD-ROM drive, but I cannot even boot my system off the DVD-ROM and install Windows. Is it possible that I have a bad connection with the HDD or DVD-ROM (the message does indicate Check Cable), or could this be from a bad controller on the mobo? I seriously doubt that my brand-new hard drive is bad.

By: Peter Longfield

Peter Longfield — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 20:07:30 +0000

One day my Toshiba Satellite SA50-522 with WinXP SP3 worked fine and the next day it just started with the message:

PXE-E61: Media Test Failure. check cable.
PXE-MOF: Exiting Intel Boot Agent

I got to know that the trouble had nothing to do with the HDD because I was able to run UBUNTU and another MS-XP version on it, but not the OEM version that came with my laptop.

I did also check the battery and the HDD but the error message remained.

Here it is what I did to finally fix up the system:

1. Use UBCD4WIN (or UBUNTU Live CD) to save all the information on an external drive.
2. From the Windows Recovery Console of UBCD4WIN:
- format the HHD.
- run the fixboot command.
- run the fixmbr command.
3. Restart the computer and reset the BIOS.
4. Install the OS from the OEM version.

Hope this will be useful for somebody.
Thank you very much to everybody for their pieces of advice.

By: Laptop Freak

Laptop Freak — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:34:24 +0000

PMIJJ,

Ok I too have the dreaded PXE-E61. Here’s my dilema: I just changed out my hard drive on my Panasonic CF-Y2. I reloaded windows XP and can see all of the files on my hard drive when I use a Linux CD Rom operating disk,so I know the drive works, but I cannot boot XP from my hard drive. I continue to get the “media test failure” message at start-up.

Enter the BIOS menu, set your hard drive as a first bootable device, safe settings and restart the laptop. Will it boot now?