I have a Toshiba Satellite R15 with Windows XP. It doesn’t boot, it says that \system32\hal.dll is missing. I have a recovery disc, but nothing happens when I put in. Is there something special I should do?

Do you understand that running the recovery disc will erase everything from the hard drive? Please back up all personal files before starting the recovery process. All personal data (music, videos, pictures, documents, etc…) will be gone.

In order to backup all personal files, you’ll have to remove the hard drive and connect it to another working computer using an external USB enclosure.

Here’s how you can boot your Satellite R15 laptop from the recovery disc and start the recovery process:

1. Insert the recovery disc into the DVD drive.
2. Restart the laptop and as soon as Toshiba logo appears on the screen press on the F12 key. This will take you to the boot device menu.
3. Using the arrow key, select the CD/DVD drive and press enter.
4. The laptop will start booting from the recovery disc.
5. Follow instructions on the screen.

My laptop keeps shutting down on its own but its only when I leave it alone for a little while like I will go eat dinner then about an hour later it will shut down. I don’t think this is a overheating problem because it would be shutting down when I am on the laptop. This only happens if i leave the laptop for an extended period of time.

Check settings in the laptop power management utility. I think the laptop is set to go into sleep mode or hibernation after not being used for some time. Change settings from go to sleep/hibernation mode to do nothing.

After changing the hard drive in my laptop, I am getting the following error message:

PXE-E61
PXE-M0F
Operating system not found

You can get this message if the hard dive is bad OR there is no operating system installed.
Didn’t you forget to reimage the hard drive using the recovery disc which usually comes with a laptop? This process will reinstall the operating system and software back to factory defaults.

A new hard drive is blank, it has on OS installed. It’s not enough just install it into the laptop. You’ll have to install the operating system.

My computer won’t start and it says – the Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: windows\system32\config\system”. I have a ThinkPad T60 computer and I am currently studying abroad in a different country away from home and I do not have the original CD for Windows…Is there any way I can get this fixed or solve it without the CD? Please write back if you can, it’d be much appreciated!

Usually on ThinkPad laptops you can repair or reinstall window from the hidden recovery partition. Turn on the laptop and press on the blue Access IBM button to activate the recovery wizard. Press on the button as soon as Lenovo (IBM) logo appears on the screen. You’ll see a few different options in the recovery menu. First, try repairing Windows. If it doesn’t help, reimage the hard drive back to factory defaults.

I have a HP DV5000 laptop, and I decided to do a full PC recovery, so when it tells me to put in 2nd disk, once I put the disk and press OK after a couple seconds while its trying to load it, it powers off automatically, I turn it on and start it over and it still does the same thing. I have never experienced that before, I have done PC recoveries a lot of times before. Please help me, I have contacted HP support they do not know the problem.

I’m not sure if I have the right answer for you but…
1. Make sure the second CD is clean. You can clean up the CD with soft cloth.
2. Run hard drive diagnostics test. You can use Hitachi’s drive fitness test, that’s a good one. Could be something wrong with the hard drive.
3. Run memory test. Memtest86+ should work just fine.

I doubt that your laptop powers off because of overheating because it happens only when you run the second recovery disk, but just in case clean the cooling module. Make sure there is no dust inside the heat sink. You can blow off the dust using canned air.

I have a Toshiba Satellite M35-s456. The hard drive crashed and I installed a new hard drive, when I try to run the system recovery CD I get a message that says “wrong system”. I can see the hard drive and DVD reader in the BIOS setup utility and the boot from DVD is the first item in the list. Do you have any suggestions?

I think the correct error message is not “Wrong System” but it is “Wrong Machine”.
Any Toshiba laptop has it’s own restore disk and the restore disk will work only with this particular model. There is a code written on the recovery disk and this code has to match the code written on the motherboard (DMI string). If code on the recovery disk doesn’t match the motherboard you get a “Wrong Machine” error message right at the beginning of the recovery process. Apparently your motherboard wasn’t programmed correctly or for some reason the DMI information has been erased.
If you ever replaced the motherboard on your laptop, it’s possible that technician forgot to wring the correct DMI information.
In order to reprogram the motherboard it’s necessary to run the DMI update utility. For some Toshiba models this utility is available for public downloads, for other Toshiba models this utility is available only for certified technicians.
I believe for a Toshiba Satellite M35 laptop this utility is not available to general public.
At this point you have two options:
1. Take your laptop to the authorized repair for DMI string update.
2. Install generic version of Windows.

I recently bought myself a Compaq nx9005 notebook. Everything was working when I first got it. I then tried to install a favorite game I used to play back in my teenage years. Unbeknown to me, this was never going to work because the program was too old. In my naivety I thought the best way to sort this out was to reload XP pro from disk. I didn’t really know what I was doing but just went with the flow. Anyway, it all came up trumps but then now I have problems connecting to the internet, and when I’m on the internet and I scroll down, the page scrolls in waves and just generally goes slow. I’ve asked a friend and he says that from what I describe, it sounds like in reloading XP pro, I deleted a few drivers which I need to make the laptop run at its normal speed. Any advice?

Yep, it sounds like you are missing some device drivers, at least the graphics driver for sure. You can see the missing device drivers in the device manager. To access the device manager go: Start – Control Panel – System – Hardware tab – Device Manager. Not recognized devices will have a yellow exclamation mark. Here are drivers for HP Compaq nx9005 notebook PC (for Windows XP). Download and install all missing drivers until all exclamation marks in the device manager are gone.

I have a HP Notebook nc6230 with Windows XP professional. I want to work on Windows Server 2003, so I tried installing the Windows Server 2003 on my external hard driver connecting through a USB cable. After I finish the initial installation (Formatting the drive and selecting the default the drive) when the computer restarts in the first time, I get an BSOD {0X000000713(0XF789A640,0XC00000341,0X000000000,0X000000000)}.
I successfully installed the Windows Server 2003 on the External Hard drive by connecting it as an internal drive to a desktop. But when I try to boot my laptop connecting this hard drive, I get another BSOD (I couldn’t copy this as it was displayed for a very short time).
After reading some messages from groups, I created a bootable CD for Server 2003, but it did not help me. This time when the laptop started booting, it booted in the DOS prompt giving an error message that USB drivers not found.
I read in some papers that it’s not possible to boot using USB external hard drive. So could you please answer my below questions:
1) Is it possible to boot the laptop using an External hard driver (USB Connection type). If yes, please provide me the steps or links which would be helpful.
2) If I frequently change the hard drive (with different OS on them) on my laptop, will that cause any problem to my laptop hard ware?
External Hard drive is an IDE Seagate hard drive 80 GB, which I’m using as an external drive with an enclosure.

That’s a good question. I’ve never tried installing Windows on an external USB hard drive but I think it’s not possible. I believe Windows OS has some limitations and it will not run from an external USB hard drive. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
In your case I would install Windows Server 2003 on the same internal hard drive with Windows XP Professional by creating a multiple boot system. Check out Acronis OS Selector utility. This software allows you to install up to 100 operating system on one computer and Windows 2003 Server is supported too.
I wouldn’t recommend frequently change the hard drive on your laptop. The hard drive plugs directly into the motherboard and overtime the connector on the motherboard might get loose or even broken. If it happens, you’ll have to replace the motherboard.

I’m trying to restore the operating system to a Toshiba A75, when I put in the restore DVD it starts the process but stops and gives an error of “Output A:\GHOST.ERR” and gives Yes or No choices. It will then come back with an error message of cannot open Ghost.err. It continues to do this until it pops up with the message. ” The image file is corrupt”. I believe the DVD drive is bad. I have a USB DVD drive is it possible to use the external DVD drive to restore the operating system?

The restore process will sometimes get as far as 50% then give the error. At that time the internal DVD drive will not open or spin. When I re-boot and try again it do the same thing but sometimes it does not see the DVD drive then it will either say no operating system or try to boot from the network and I will get the network error messages.

This unit does not seem to have a USB boot option only hard drive, CD/DVD, network, and removable media.

When I try to boot from the external DVD, it starts but then gives a large banner of No CD/Network, then goes to an A: prompt even though there is no A drive. I can access the A, B, C, Q, drives at this point the a and b drives show the exact same files (When I look at the directory it lists files that are not on the DVD), and the c drive shows no files and no label, when I try to access the Q drive it gives the CD error that the drive is not ready abort retry fail.

You cannot boot this laptop from the external USB drive, there is no such option on Satellite A75. Make sure the DVD disk is clean; sometimes you can get an error because of a dirty media. Test memory, you can run Mettest86+ utility. I believe sometimes you can get an error because of bad RAM.
At this point it’s hard to guess what it wrong, DVD drive, media, RAM or something else. Do you have any other Windows OS CD? Try installing OS from another CD, may be you can borrow it from a friend just for this test. If the installation process goes smoothly, probably your restore DVD is bad. If another CD fails too, probably the DVD drive is bad.

I have a Toshiba Satellite A65 S-1068. Recently the Windows XP Home crashed and I have installed another version (Professional) having lost the original CD that came with the laptop. I am gradually downloading all the drivers etc. from the Toshiba site. My problem is with the Power Saver Software. The newly installed software does not show the Hibernate option at all (when the lid is shut) and so the battery drains really fast and the computer remains on even when the lid is shut. How to solve this issue? Please help!

I never use the hibernation option, so I decided to check if the power saver software on my Toshiba Satellite A105 has it. And I found that the hibernation option in not there by default. Here’s how I was able to enable it.
Open the control panel and click on the power options icon. It will bring you to the power options properties where you have to select the hibernation tab. In here enable the hibernation by selecting the box and click on OK to save the settings. Now, when the hibernation is enable in the Windows power options you can go to Toshiba power saver settings. There you should be able to select the hibernation mode, when the display is closed.