As the title suggests I have reached my limit and knowledge base now with a problem on my Toshiba satellite laptop. It's running windows 7 and is about 4-5 years old.

 

I have suffered the black screen of death and the system just reboots after trying to auto repair/start-up repair. I have tried a valid windows 7 recovery and installation disc which just puts the "set up starting" message and 8 hours later still nothing. The most obvious thing I have noticed is when I ask it to repair the computer( from disc, not normal ops) it shows installation as windows 7 but the partition size 0MB so not good.

 

I have ran everything I can think of including using command prompt to repair/rebuild boot problems, checked winlogon using regedit etc. I now have the Hard drive in SATA docking station as all I want is the photos and some files then I'm not bothered about the machine. When in the docking station and using my wife's laptop(this one!) it shows her drives as normal and then below shows my 3 SYSTEM F, LOCAL G and DATA H so it knows it's there but does not show any size like the others ie DATA H 237 GB free of 249GB.

 

My main issue is as above I'm not entirely sure how to recover files or what is the best software to use so any help, and I mean any, will be massively  appreciated. 

 

Steve

Maybe should of posted this over in the Technology Shed, DOH

Maybe should of posted this over in the Technology Shed, DOH

Hit the report button on one of the posts and ask nicely if a mod could move it to the tech shed.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

Moved across to the technology shed.

Can you expand the drives to show the data? If so get what you need and then wipe and rebuild. It sounds like the HDD partition table is goosed. Try downloading a programme called Recuva which scans and detects deleted files, in this case it may be able to find the files scrambled on the problem HDD

Cheers Mannyo

 

Ally_Bassman if I try to expand what is on this machine G: Local it simply will not do it and throws up errors, the other two drives will expand so your advice makes sense.

 

I will download this Recuva program and see how I get on, cheers

What errors are you getting?

How confident are you?

 

I'd suggest you pop out the drive and try it in your wife's laptop or even better a desktop. 

If no luck there it might well be that the drive is kaput.

 

If you have a desktop try putting your ear against it when you power on, if there are any unpleasant clunks or grinding noises might be a mechanical fault.

 

If the disk is mechanically sound but the MBR or partition table is FUBAR then some software like recuva might well do the trick but it'll need to be done in a second machine.

 

If you can get it running the first thing to do is copy everything off the disk that is important, if it's failed once it might well be on its way out.

 

after that write this out 1000 times -

 

I will backup my data

I will backup my data...

How confident are you?

 

I'd suggest you pop out the drive and try it in your wife's laptop or even better a desktop. 

If no luck there it might well be that the drive is kaput.

 

If you have a desktop try putting your ear against it when you power on, if there are any unpleasant clunks or grinding noises might be a mechanical fault.

 

If the disk is mechanically sound but the MBR or partition table is FUBAR then some software like recuva might well do the trick but it'll need to be done in a second machine.

 

If you can get it running the first thing to do is copy everything off the disk that is important, if it's failed once it might well be on its way out.

 

after that write this out 1000 times -

 

I will backup my data

I will backup my data...

Unfortunately most people only learn this lesson after they have lost their data (including family photos of important events) - guilty as charged and I should have known better.

Unfortunately most people only learn this lesson after they have lost their data (including family photos of important events) - guilty as charged and I should have known better.

 

I think everyone goes through that about 3 times before the lesson is learned.