My laptop hard disk crashed along with optical drive. I have got the new parts in place now. I am connecting my old hard disk in an USB enclosure to the laptop. I cannot see the drive in My computer though it shows up in disk management as healthy. It is FAT 32.
Please help me to recover the data. Do I need any recovery software?
If the old drive appears in the disk management but not in My Computer, apparently the file structure on the hard drive is corrupted. In this case you’ll have to use data recovery software. It’s still possible to get personal files with the data recovery software even though the hard drive will not appear in My Computer.
The harddrive makes a weird noise and suddenly the screen goes blank loose all my work. I did my backup recovery disks and bought a new harddrive; I tried booting from the disk but no-go, the screen comes and says no operating system found.
I had to put back in my old harddrive. I’m so frustrated with this laptop. Please help!
Make sure the laptop actually boots from the DVD drive. Apparently the laptop is not booting from the recovery disc and goes straight to the hard drive. You have a new blank hard drive installed, that’s why you see “No operating system found” message.
Read the rest of this entry »
I dropped my laptop from a TV tray (about 2ft) onto a hardwood floor and now it won’t reboot. It just turns on then the screen says “PXE-E61: Media Test Failure Check Cable.” It’s still under accident protection at best buy and they said it was either the motherboard or HDD that was shot and that there doesn’t seem to be a way to recover my files. They said they could send it to their data recovery center but they want $500-$1k to recover the files since they said it would be difficult to recover the files. Could the mother board or HDD really be shot or could just be the connections need to be reseated? If it is the HDD or motherboard is paying $500-$1k my only option of recovering my files?
First of all, check the hard drive. It’s possible that the hard dive simply got disconnected from the motherboard. Reconnect the hard drive and see if it helps. On most laptops you can access the hard drive from the door on the bottom or on the side.
If the hard drive still not detected find out if the hard drive makes any strange sounds when the laptop is turned on. If the hard drive is clicking or making other repetitive sounds, like it’s trying but cannot start, you will not be able to recover data at home. You’ll have to use recovery room service in order to get data back and it can be very expensive, easily over $1K.
If the hard drive is not spinning at all or it spins but not detected by the laptop, it’s possible that there is a problem with the motherboard. You can try accessing the hard drive using an external USB enclosure. It might work.
I have a major problem. I have a Toshiba Satellite P15-S479 laptop. I just replaced the hard drive and when I tried to turn my computer on I get this error:
Intel UNDI, PXE-2.0 (build 082)
Copyright (c) 1997-2000 Intel Corporation
For Reatek RTL8139(x)/8130/810x PCI Fast Ethernet Controller v2.13 (020326)
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting PXE ROM.
I can see in the BIOS screen that it recognizes the new hard drive but all I keep getting is that message. I would really appreciate any help you can give me. It won’t allow me to do anything, I have the recovery CD but can’t get passed that screen to use it.
I think there is nothing wrong with your laptop and it displays PXE-E61 media test failure message because the hard drive is brand new and has not partition and file system. You can see the hard drive in the BIOS and this is good, it means the hard drive is detected.
In order to boot the laptop from the recovery CD you have to change the boot order in the BIOS and make sure the DVD drive is listed first. Alternatively, you can press F12 key as soon as Toshiba logo appears on the screen. After that it will display the boot menu and you can select the DVD drive. Here’s one more trick. Press “C” key when Toshiba logo is displayed, it will boot the laptop directly from the CD-Rom without displaying the boot menu.
Boot the laptop from the recovery disc and install the operating system. It should fix the problem. I hope it helps.
My computer was really sluggish. I thought it was time for the good old wipe. I loaded up my XP CD and each time it went into Windows Setup it gave me a BOSD 0×0000007B. My HD works. So I booted into Knoppix (CD) and wiped my HD clean. Tried to go into XP, but it said it didn’t find any hard drives connected to my PC. What is happening? I know my Hard drive works! how do i solve this? How do i reinstall XP without these problems?
Maybe the hard drive hasn’t failed completely yet, but it’s going to? Test the hard drive, you can use Hitachi’s drive fitness test. If you get errors during the test, most likely you’ll have to replace the hard drive. Also, make sure it’s properly connected to the motherboard. Reconnect the hard drive and try installing XP again. It might help.
Just in case, try low level hard drive formatting. For this purpose you can use Active@ Kill Disk Hard Drive Eraser.
It’s also possible that you have a problem with the hard drive controller on the motherboard but the only way to find out is installing a good known hard drive and installing XP. If XP cannot see a known good hard drive, most likely it’s a motherboard related problem.
I have a toshiba m35-s456 which i bought 9/04. Was working fine till one day “windows cannot start because file missing or corrupt.” figured hard drive failing, took it out, set it up as usb drive to transfer what data i could before it died (which is readable but slowly)… bought replacement hard drive and installed it, restoring with the original toshiba dvd. This is xp (not yet sp2, would have to get that after restore to bring it back up to speed.) seemed okay for just a few minutes and then began frequent shutdowns with blue screen of death… i assume it’s motherboard issue as this is now with new hard drive, which says it doesn’t need a separate driver itself. Am I way out of this extended warranty by now? Help. Thanks
You can get this error message because of faulty memory module. Test memory with Memtest86+. If you have two memory modules installed, remove them one by one and test the laptop with only one module in place. Try different memory configurations, for example, module 1 in slot A, module 1 in slot B, module 2 in slot A and module 2 in slot B. Find out which memory module or memory slot is causing the problem. Replace the module if needed.
If you have only one memory module, try moving it into a different slot, just in case if you have a faulty memory slot on the motherboard.
Anyways, I think it might be just a faulty memory module.
I have a Toshiba Tecra A3 cel-M 360 laptop and it was all working perfectly fine until recently. I use Microsoft Office 2003 and lately it has stopped working. T tried uninstalling it and re-installing office but it just wont work. If i click “Microsoft Word” the start up screen appears and it just freezes on that screen. I can run other programs and applications but that start up screen for Microsoft word remains frozen on top of my wallpaper. I was told that the hard drive could possibly be faulty but I’m not sure. Any help please?
I think they are right, you might have a problem with the hard drive. Turn on the laptop and listen for the hard drive sounds. Is it loud? Can you hear grinding or clicking noises? If you can, probably your hard drive is dying. You can test the hard drive with Hitachi’s drive fitness test. Download this utility, create a bootable CD, start the laptop from this CD and run the test. Also, you can find this utility in the Ultimate Boot CD.
I would recommend to back up all personal data as soon as possible because the hard drive can stop working any moment.
Hi, I bought a HDD from eBay and it came in original wrapping etc… It is a Fujitsu MHT2040AS and it has an IBM p/n 71p7503. I am running XP Home and my laptop is a Toshiba Sattelite 1400-503. I have the HDD in a USB case and my computer finds the HDD and has loaded software and the HDD shows up in my system Hardware configuration as HDD#2 and is working fine but it won’t show up in My Computer. How can I get this HDD to show up so I can use it? Please help. I am sure it will be a simple oversight by me. Driving me nuts.
My Computer cannot see your new hard drive in USB case because the hard drive is not partitioned and formatted yet. To partition and format the hard drive you’ll have to go through the following steps.
1. Connect the USB enclosure to the computer and turn on the computer.
2. Go to Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Computer Management. In the Computer Management window click on Disk Management.
3. In the Disk Management window you should see 2 hard drives. Disk 0 – that’s your primary hard drive and Disk 1 – that’s the hard drive in the USB enclosure. For the Disk1 you’ll see the HDD size inside the bar and also it should say Unalocated. It means that the new hard drive is not partitioned and formatted.
4. Right click on the unallocated space and click on new partition entry, the wizard for creating a new partition on the hard drive will appear. In most cases you should chose: Primary partition, partition size would already in there (entire drive), assign any free letter or leave it default, file system NTFS (default), check the Perform a quick format (faster) box, NEXT and FINISH. It might take some time. You’ll see that the LED on the USB enclosure (if you have any) will start flashing.
5. After it’s done, you should see that Disk1 says: New Volume, HDD size, and Healthy.
Now, if you go to My Computer you should see the second hard drive and you can use it as a regular drive.
I have a Toshiba Satellite 5205-S703 and had it for 3yrs, warranty expired. I’m having a lot of problems recently. The latest one is I can’t seem to boot to Windows. I get the Toshiba splash screen and the display console shows ‘HD1 password=’ I don’t know the password. I think it is a hardware problem where can I find a reliable laptop repair center.
If you didn’t set up the hard drive password yourself, then most likely you have a problem with the hard drive. This model has a BIOS update in version 1.40 related to this issue. Check it out here. It says that you can get a message asking for the hard drive password if there is a problem with the hard drive. So, I think that your hard drive is bad and that’s why you see this message.
First of all, I would check what version of BIOS you have and if it’s an old one, I would update it. Try to press Esc key on the laptop start up to access the setup menu, you can find the BIOS version in there. The latest BIOS version for Satellite 5205 at this time is 1.50. It’s possible that after the BIOS update you would be able to get an access to the hard drive. If you have an important data on the hard drive and you are able to access it, back it up as soon as possible, because the hard drive might fail permanently any time.
You can run Hitachi Drive Fitness test to test the hard drive. If it fails the test, you’ll have to replace it. It’s not very difficult. You can access the hard drive from the bottom of the laptop if you remove the hatch. After you replace the hard drive, you’ll have to run a recovery DVD (you got it when you bought the laptop) to restore operating system and the factory software. To start the recovery process, place the DVD inside the laptop, restart it and press C key when the Toshiba splash screen appears. The laptop will start booting from the DVD and after that you’ll have to follow the instructions.
Toshiba installs 60GB 4200RPM hard drive into this model. You can install 60GB, 80GB, 100GB or 120GB hard drive; you should have any problem with the size. You can use 4200RPM or 5400RPM hard drives. Faster is better. I haven’t tried 7200RPM in this model yet, so not sure if there would be any heat related issues.
If you not sure if you can do it yourself, then any local computer repair shop can handle it.
I’m having a problem with my Toshiba Satelite P20.
I believe that my HDD has finally worn out. Over the past few months, it used to take several attempts to boot up windows XP. Sometimes, the hard drive failed to load and sometimes the HDD light used to hang on, and I would receive a disk-read error has occurred. The message which I also used to get, and which I keep getting now is:
PXE-E61 Media test failure, check cable
Exiting PXE ROM
I tried booting up from a CD, and it failed to detect the hard drive.
I’m almost positive that you have a bad hard drive. PXE means Pre-Boot Execution Environment. You see this message when the laptop trying to boot from a remote server using the network card. If you didn’t see the PXE-E61 message before, it means that the network card was listed after the hard drive in the boot order (you can set the order in BIOS) and the laptop booted directly from the hard drive. Now, when the hard drive has failed, the laptop cannot detect it and tries to boot from the next available device – the network card. Your laptop is not configured to boot from a remote server using the network card, that’s why you are getting PXE-E61 Media test failure error. You have to replace the hard drive and reinstall the operating system.