Windows Vista & Windows XP

[ptoezee]

Ok, to try to make things easy, Im going to list step by step what I have done and where my problem is.

1.My hard drive crashed. 

2.Bought new hard drive.

3. Inserted Restore CD that initally came with laptop

4. Got the dreaded DMI.EXE error

5. Contacted toshiba support

6. Was given the the following info

     a.  Need to update DMI Utility

     b. download  "toshdmi10.exe" on floppy and follow directions

     c.followed these direction:

"The DMI installation launcher offers the option to create a bootable DMI update diskette. Simply select 'Diskette Installation' from the Launcher menu and click 'Ok'. You'll need to have a diskette drive (internal, USB, or PCMCIA) installed, and a formatted 1.44MB diskette available.

Once the DMI update diskette has been created, update the DMI strings using the following steps:

1. Connect the computer to AC power using the AC adapter.
2. Close all open programs
3. Insert the BIOS installation diskette into your diskette drive (A
4. Shut down the operating system. With Windows, you may choose to Restart rather than shutting down.
5. If necessary, restart the computer by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del or turning the computer OFF then on again

The computer will boot DOS from the DMI update diskette, and present a model selection menu. Select the model that most closely matches yours, and press [Enter]. You'll be prompted to confirm your selection. If it's correct, press [Y] and [Enter]. Your DMI strings are now updated.

Eject the diskette from drive A: and turn the computer OFF then ON, or press the reset switch to restart your computer. Your computer is now ready to use the restore CD/DVD."

Sounds easy right?????  NOT!

when I start the computer with the disk that I made from the directions, it starts with 

Starting Windows 95...

Failed to read platform ID.

Please removed the diskette and restart computer....

can someone PLEASE tell me what I have done wrong????????

Thank you so much

Patty

[Pensacola_Tiger]

From what you say, you've done nothing wrong.  Time to call Toshiba again, and ask them what is wrong with their utility.

[lilmaqi]

No DMI UTILITY

 Toshdmi10.exe will not work on your system. You will need to bring to an ASP to have it fixed.

[Techman]

So it seems the core of your problem is that you want to run the recovery disks, but it fails at the DMI check.

I have found a method for bypassing the DMI check that the Toshiba recovery process does, at least for Windows Vista.  This worked for me on my Tecra M9-S5517V, but your mileage may vary.  

First of all I found that it looks like Toshiba is using the Microsoft IMAGEX program to write the image.  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc749447.aspx

So with that in mind and some trial and error I found the following steps work.

1. Boot the Recovery disc or HDD image and select System Recovery Options.
2. Follow the prompts until you get to the menu and then select a command prompt.
3. Copy the \zzimages\zzimages directory for all recovery discs to a temp directory on the hard drive (c:\temp).
4. Change to the Bin directory on the first recovery disc and run "tosimagex /apply c:\temp\preinst.swm 1 c:\ /ref c:\temp\preinst*.swm" without the quotes.  

That is it.  It will take a long time to copy the files since they are large and a long time to run the image program, half an hour on my computer.  Also, based on Imagex syntax, it looks like the "1" in the command above might be replaced with another number for models that come with more then one Windows version on the same recovery media.

[admin edit of subject]

Message Edited by jim on 04-03-2009 09:53 AM

[Chico]

Thank you for using the Toshiba Laptop Forums. Since there have been no posts to this thread in several days, it is being marked "read only" as part of our routine message board maintenance.

If you still need assistance, please feel free to post a new message or contact the Toshiba Customer Support Center at 1-800-457-7777.

Chico