Asked By
chrisy bee
230 points
N/A
Posted on - 05/27/2011
Hi!
I have a Toshiba satellite. But, recently due to some virus, my whole hard drive got corrupted and now, it won’t start up.
To solve the issue, I contacted Toshiba people on the Internet. After listening to my problem, they recommended that I should do a system restore from the CDs they provided with the laptop. Since I have lost them, I bought some from best buy, but now I don’t know how to run them to recover my files and to make my computer functional again.
Anyone who knows how to use these CDs? Please help me, since best buy didn’t give me much on what to do with them.
Recovery of The Toshiba Satellite
Hi Chris,
What Toshiba technical support informed you about is definitely correct. Usually, whenever you have your PC infected by some sort of viruses, malware or even spyware, the best solution is to do a factory setting on your PC. If ever, newer model of computers right now do have a built in recovery partition. I can definitely give you top solutions on how you can run the recovery using a disk.
Most Toshiba laptops won’t recognize the CD right away after you put the CD in. I recommend that you to have the disk inserted first and then shutdown the PC manually or force shutdown the computer.
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Once you force shutdown the PC with the disk in, hold down the letter “C” key on your keyboard then turn the PC on while holding down the “C” key. This process will be automatically recognized by your PC, and that the first boot will be from the optical disk drive or what we call the CD/DVD drive.
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Hold down the “C” key until you hear a beeping sound or if you see “Windows is loading files” prompt on your screen, that is the only time that you may release the “C” key.
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After “Windows is loading file” prompt, the next prompt is “Starting windows” and there will be a big WARNING sign. Make sure to plug in the AC adapter or the charge for your PC when you see this warning sign before going to the next step.
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Once you plug in the AC adapter to your PC, you need to click on the “YES” button to be able to continue to the next page.
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After you click “YES”, make sure to read the options carefuly. Usually, the best way to go to this, is to always choose the first option (but not all the time because some Toshiba laptops don’t have the same recovery prompts). Click the System recovery setup option and then click next to proceed.
Another prompt will pop up and the usual options are:
a. Recovery from Out of the box state.
b. Erase the hard drive.
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Make sure to select the first option which is Recovery from out of the box state and then click next to proceed.
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On the last page, just click continue to finalize the process and proceed in starting the system recovery process. Once you click continue, the prompt will say “Initializing the recovery partition. ”
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This will take up to 45 minutes to initialize the process. Make sure not to interrupt the PC while in this process because we might face a bigger problem. After this process, your computer might do “Reconfiguring the settings” and the tendency is the PC screen might flash a couple of times and restart by itself which is basically normal while still running a recovery.
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If your PC just shuts down by itself, don’t panic. This is the hint that the recovery process is already finished and you just need to restart the PC manually so you will be able to setup the PC like when you purchase it.
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Now setting up the PC again is like going thru a couple of configurations and personal settings setup. You need to setup your Internet connectivity, the time and date, your location and create you username and password. You will also be asked if what firewall and automatic updates setup you would like. Once you set it up, make sure to activate your Antivirus software.
Usually, computers do have a pre-installed Antivirus, so make sure to turn the PC on before start browsing the Internet.
Happy browsing!
Recovery of The Toshiba Satellite
If your computer doesn’t boot anymore, it is possible that the virus already corrupted its bootstrap loader that is needed to load Windows operating system. If this is the current state of your computer, try booting in Safe Mode. This is the only option left to be able to recover some of your files in the hard drive. But this is not guaranteed to work since your computer is already been infected by a virus. But it’s worth trying. You can boot in Safe Mode by pressing the power button of your computer and then after the BIOS appears press F8. Or just continuously press F8 after pressing the power button.
If you are successful in booting in Safe Mode, copy all of your files. You should format your hard drive after that in order to install a new operating system. Restoring your laptop using the CD as advised in the website is still not guaranteed to work.
