System Recovery and Recovery Media

[race28]

Have a friends model A205-7458 that he was downloading a file onto a USB HD when apparntly the printer cable got hooked on the USB drive and yanked it out. System now will not load and hits a corrupt file message in \windows\system32\drivers\fileinfo.sys Status: 0xc00000c9 Info: Windows failed to load because a critical system driver is missing, or corrupt.

None of the options booting under F8 will respond.

He found the "Recovery and Applications/Driver Satellite A200/A205 Series" CD's/DVD's but when I load and boot to the 1st CD\DVD (I do hear it access the CD/DVD) it runs a bar across bottom and says it's loading Windows files and then goes to a black screen with Micrsoft Corporation at the bottom with a small bar with yellow squares running across it. It hangs there for a wile and then goes to either an all black screen with the mouse arrow, which I can control, or to just an all black screen. 

Would like to repair this system if possible and only do a recovery as a last resort but am not getting any options from this CD\DVD. Do see instructions that say to hold own C on boot but they say this wll do a recovery not a repair.

Only thing I can think of is that the CD\DVD drive isn't working correctly since the corrupt file is a main driver file. 

Also tried going into the BIOS to load defaults but that didn't do anything. Tried diabling USB Legacy Support since it was a USB drive that started all this but that didn't do anything either.

Before I give in and do a recovery I thought I'd ask and see if anyone here might have any ideas. Would replacing the fileinfo.sys file work? If so how would I get a clean one? How do I get to a DOS prompt? Am I understanding the instructions wrong and holding down C on boot would bring me to the options screen?

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks :-)

[cee_64]

See page 60 of the owners manual for complete infomation on using the Recovery Wizard.  Press and hold the 0 (zero) key while powering on the computer.  This will load the Recovery Wizard which provides a number of different options for restoring or recovering the system. 

If you don't have the manual available you can download it by going to the DOWNLOAD link at the top of the page, clicking in the BLUE TEXT Show All Models link, and filling your specific model.

[race28]

Appreciate the response but unfortunately this isn't what I'm looking for. Holding 0 is supposed to recover the system to facory defaults using the hard drive recovery partition. I'm looking to use the Recovery Disc's and want to "repair" not "recover". It does talk about using the recovery CD's that are user created, not the supplied ones, and says you should be able to just boot from the CD and it should run (pg. 64) - it doesn't.

Holding down the O during power up doesn't bring up any recovery console anyway. This model must not have had this option installed. Did get a "Windows Boot Manager" screen that gave me the option to either launch Windows, press F8 for other options (which brings me to the regular F8 boot screen with Repair, safe mod options etc. which as previously stated nothing works) or press tab key and choose from 2 different tools - Ramdisk Device Options or Windows Memory Diagnostic. Have tried the first so far and nothing.

Windows gives the option of "repair" is there no way to run a Windows "repair" with these Toshiba systems?

Failing that at this point I can't even "recover" the system to factory defaults due to not being able to get the Recovery CD\DVD to work.

Any help or ideas for either would be appreciated!

Thanks! :-)

[Jerry_Lippey]

Satellite A205-S7458 

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I'm looking to use the Recovery Disc's and want to "repair" not "recover".

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Nope. You cannot use the Toshiba recovery discs to repair anything. (You can do this with a Windows Vista installation disc however.)

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None of the options booting under F8 will respond.

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What happens when you select Repair Your Computer?

[race28]

When I select repair my computer off the F8 boot it goes to "Windows is loading files" on the bootom of the screen with a progess bar which stops after about 2 inches in then after a while it goes to the original corrupt file error about unplugging a removable storage device while device in use. (see 1st post)

I don't have a stand alone Vista installation disc to try. Only Vista recovery discs from other manufacturers.

Did try dong a full reinstall, holding down the C during boot. Instructions do not say whether system should be set to boot to HD or CD\DVD for this so tried both. Did get a screen that said something about Windows setup in the same black & white I've been getting. When clicked on that it went to the same "Windows is loading files" and progress bar. After files loaded it went to an all black screen then eventully it gave me a mouse arrow. That was it. Never did anything else.

Whatever I try I get either a hung progress bar then the initial corrupt file error - or a completed progress bar and then a black screen with a mouse arrow.

Either something else is wrong with the hardware on this system - like more happened than what the friend is telling me - or something is wrong with the recovery discs. The discs were unopened with the plastic wrap and seals intact.

At this point I think I'm going to give it back to him and tell him it's beyond the tools I have at my disposal to fix. He can either pay to get it fixed from Toshiba or some other place where they have the tools needed or buy a new one.

But if anyone can think of anything else to try I'm up for it.

Thanks!

[Jerry_Lippey]

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When I select repair my computer off the F8 boot it goes to "Windows is loading files" on the bootom of the screen ... after a while it goes to the original corrupt file error about unplugging a removable storage device while device in use.

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If you're willing to go to some trouble, you can access the same recovery environment I described using the Windows Vista Recovery Disc Download.

When you get there, it looks like this.

  

[race28]

Just had to restore a different manufacturer and this was a screen that came up from their recovery disc. That system did not respond to any of these prompts and I had to do a full reinstall.

Tried those discs on this system but it did the same thing it did with the Toshiba disc. Without a straight up Windows Vista install disc - which you only get nowadays if you purchase the software outright - I don't know how I'd even get to this screen on the Toshiba.

Even if I could I think I would get the same result I'm getting now as they are really the same options that are available on the F8 boot and he doesn't have an external backup of the system. But I'd be willing to try.

I did think about hooking the hard drive from that system up to another system and seeing if I could reinstall the OS that way. That would tell me if the problem is with the hard drive itself or something external like the cd\dvd drive. Thing is I'm more desktop tech than laptop and have never taken a laptop apart before. Don't know if I could hook the laptop HD up to a desktop system and really don't want to take one of my laptops apart. I'll check out the manuals but I think he either has to bring it to people with the right tools to fix it or get a new one.

This is the first system I've had to give up on :-)

[Jerry_Lippey]

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Without a straight up Windows Vista install disc ... I don't know how I'd even get to this screen on the Toshiba.

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You would. Everything necessary is on the CD.

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Even if I could I think I would get the same result I'm getting now as they are really the same options that are available on the F8 boot..

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Not so. Everything you do at F8 depends upon what's on the hard disk. All this stuff is on the CD.

Whether you want to jump through all those downloading hoops is your call, of course. There's no guarantee it will repair the startup.

[briedas]

SAME problems with A105-S4014.

Restore disk - will start to load - gets to BSOD - Blue Screen of Death - (STOP: 0x000000CA (0x00000002, 0x89B84CE8, 0x00000000, 0x00000000))

WIN XP installation CD - starts OK, tries to expand files - same BSOD.

WIN VISTA installation CD - BSOD at file expansion.

BartPE - does not boots - BSOD.

UBUNTU - no progress at all.

Found bad hard disk, replaced to new. As I said - can not restore from Recovery DVD, can not install any Windows. I had image made with Acronis, restored from it. Now laptop goes to constant reboot after showing BSOD for a second, but finally boots after few attempts. If I put laptop to Hibernate - no problems starting up again. But because of Windows OS - you have to restart laptop time after time - that's is when problems rebooting begins again.

Any suggestions?

[Jerry_Lippey]

Satellite A105-S4014

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laptop goes to constant reboot after showing BSOD for a second, but finally boots after few attempts.

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That sort of intermittent behavior points to failing hardware - not software.