Somebody PLEASE HELP ME

[jch2273]

Thanks everyone for helping me....I'm not sure what's going on....it was fine the other day....shut it down like normal then went to use it again yesterday and turned it on and got the error messages.....that's when I tried to restore it to factory specs and went through the boot with the factory disk and when it came up it first asked me if the output was to go to the A:\ghost.ink or something and it only had a yes or no.....yes led to invalid drive and no led to trying to re-boot which it couldn't. I got close to restore today when it loaded everything rebooted and got to the Windows XP screen but then it got stuck there.....it has been crazy. Now it's making some really squeaky noise like it's trying to think and can't......sounds way too difficult for me....maybe I should just let it go and buy another one? Any other otions wold be great

Where do you download the memtest?

 

[KSoD]

Hello,

Download for MemTest86 below:

Memtest86 - Download Page

Cheers,
Mak

 

[jch2273]

Hi everyone.....I ran the memtest86 last night and everything was okay and passed.

Then I ran Active Partition Recovery software that looked at the harddrive....well it let me look at the sectors and at sector 0 Cluster 0 it has a message that says " A Disk error has occurred" "NTLDR is missing" NTLDR is compressed."

Also when moving through the sectors I get error reading sector 13124, etc. Error numbers range from 2, 4, 16...

Anyway does this mean the hard drive is bad and can't be fixed.....The laptop isn't very old....

 

[Kharn]

The hard drive looks like it's the culprit to me, what you will need to doing your self is very easy about 10 - 60 min depending on you an the laptop. Taking it to some one to have it done for you is expensive an not worth it for the ammount of time it will take.

If you have any more questions you know where to post them.

 

[KSoD]

Hello,

I agree with Saxon. The hard drive is failing and on it way out. Need to get a replacement.

Cheers,
Mak

 

[jch2273]

Okay so the hard drive needs replacing......is this something I can do myself....I'm a pretty smart gal.....and where would I buy a new one....Toshiba direct?

 

[Kharn]

OK, its a easy DIY job as i said before, first off you will need a 2.5in hard drive for the laptop a 3.5in wont fit inside, then you will have to figure out if its IDE or SATA:

This is a IDE hard drive:

An this is a SATA hard drive:

Sorry for the image quality on that one it was the best i could find if you need a clear one just ask an i will upload.

If you post a pic of the BOTTOM of your laptop I will show you where you need to remove some screws to take out the old hard drive. It will be mounted on some rails normally to allow you to slide it in an out there will be 4 more screws in the sides of the rails to hold it in place take them out put the new drive in its place an go through the steps I have just gave you.

If your unsure post back an I will help you.

 

[jch2273]

I found the hard drive and removed, it just a plug in....then I called National Parts Depot....they carry the replacement. the rails are the silver brackets? The hard drive does not come formatted.....will my restore and recovery cd do the format and restore when I plug in the new drive?

 

[Kharn]

Yes it should format it for you, an the silver rails are the also called brackets, but be wary of the numbered parts replacement services they charge a huge amount compared to a normal hard drive that will do the same job. This is also a perfect time to upgrade so if you have a 80gb hard drive you could put a larger one in there like a 160gb.

 

[jch2273]

Thanks so much to everyone who has helped me here......the hard drive replacement is coming from the parts dealer for toshiba.....I didn't think $125.00 was a bad price for a new drive but I might be wrong.....it's still cheaper than buying a another new laptop. It will be here in a few days and if I run into any problems I will definitely give a big shout here......thanks again to everyone who helped me.