Toshiba Laptop will not boot into Win 7

[lafargeotte]

Not sure if off topic, but hope someone can help.

Here is a weird scenario. Toshiba Satellite Pro A210.

HDD failed. Fortunately do regular backups, so restored to a new HDD.

New HDD securely fitted to A210. Powered up, HDD recognised by BIOS, and proceeded to boot, get the following error:
For Realtek RTL8100E-8101E Fast Ethernet Network Adaptor Version 1.02
PXE-E61 Media Test Failure Check Cable
PXE-MOF Exiting PXE ROM

A210 WILL boot from USB or DVD.

Tried various things, searched internet, found lots of same or similar errors all with no good result.

I have a Paragon Boot Disk, booted into that. One of the options is find OS's on hard disks. Try that, it finds OS. Asks if want to boot into it, accept and Win 7 loads!

So, why will the A210 not load the OS? It recognises the HDD, and another medium can boot into the OS.

Looking forward to your replies!

 

[michaelst]

My guess would be the old drive contained a hidden partition which contained required boot files. Did you restore the whole drive or just the C partition?

You may need to do a repair of your MBR, which would require a system recovery disc that you created, or the Windows 7 install disc.

 

[gregrocker]

Use the Paragon disk to boot into Win7, then post back a screenshot of your maximized full Disk Management drive map with listings, using Snipping Tool in Start Menu.

 

[lafargeotte]

Here is a screenshot, thanks for your help.

Paul.

 

[Britton30]

My guess would be the old drive contained a hidden partition which contained required boot files. Did you restore the whole drive or just the C partition?

You may need to do a repair of your MBR, which would require a system recovery disc that you created, or the Windows 7 install disc.

The drive APPEARS to be missing the 100MB boot partition.

 

[lafargeotte]

How can that be done please?

 

[gregrocker]

The problem is that you've reimaged to a Logical partition from which Win7 cannot boot. It must have originally been on a Primary partition since the reimaged partition contains the "System Active" boot files, but they nevertheless can not start from a Logical partition now.

The solution to this is to burn to a free Partition Wizard bootable CD, boot it, rightclick on Win7 partition to Modify>Convert to Primary, click OK.

Next highlight the WIn7 disk itself on the map, from Disk tab choose Rebuild MBR, click OK. Now Apply all Steps.

Now reboot into Win7 to see if it will start. If not boot the Win7 DVD or Repair CD to run Startup Repair a few times to repair or rewrite the System Boot files to Win7 partition, reconfirming first that it is Primary and marked Active.

 

[lafargeotte]

Booted into Partition Wizard, it shows the Windows 7 partition as unallocated!

If I create the partition using Partition Wizard, will it delete Win 7?

 

[lafargeotte]

OK, got it sorted.

Using Paragon in Windows 7, it allowed the change to Primary, and then rebooted.

Now boots straight in to 7.

Thanks gregrocker.

 

[gregrocker]

This is not good to hear about Partition Wizard. It should have seen Win7 and allowed conversion.

 

[lafargeotte]

At least I managed to get it sorted.

Hopefully it was just a blip for Partition wizard!

 

[SIW2]

Hi,


Did you just use Partition Wizard v6.0 ?

I hoped they had fixed that.

If you are back in Windows 7 now, please start paragon - no need to do anything with it - when you see Paragon main screen , just close it.

The please put a copy fdisk.txt in a .zip and post it up here.


You will find fdisk.txt in Paragon "program" folder.

Thanks.

Booted into Partition Wizard, it shows the Windows 7 partition as unallocated!

If I create the partition using Partition Wizard, will it delete Win 7?

 

[SIW2]

If you can include pwlog.txt and BIoNtlog.txt as well - that would be great.

 

[SIW2]

No response.

Shame - that may have helped track down the partition wizard bug.

 

[lafargeotte]

Hi,

I have to sleep sometime you know .

Files attached as requested.

 

[SIW2]

Do you ? LOL

Thanks for posting those.

It was partition wizard v6.0 you used ?

I assume so , since you downloaded it yesterday.

 

[PartitionWizard]

Hi my friends,

I am the developer of Partition Wizard. Could anybody provide more information about this problem to us? The partition layout of the Toshiba Laptop is very strange. If you could help us, please send email to [email protected]. And I will try to find out a solution for it.

Thank you for your assistance.

Partition Wizard.

 

[lafargeotte]

Hi,

SIW2, I ended up using Paragon Partition Manager. I was able to start the process from within Win 7. The program then rebooted the PC and finished the process before loading Win 7. All now appears OK.

Partition Wizard, unfortunately your boot disk showed the Win 7 partition as unallocated, so I could not use it.

 

[SIW2]

Hello Again,

I take it you saw the logs the OP posted up - yes I can see you downloaded them.

Unfortunately , they were after the event.

I will try and reproduce it here without borking anything.

Hi my friends,

I am the developer of Partition Wizard. Could anybody provide more information about this problem to us? The partition layout of the Toshiba Laptop is very strange. If you could help us, please send email to [email protected]. And I will try to find out a solution for it.

Thank you for your assistance.

Partition Wizard.

 

[dsperber]

HDD failed. Fortunately do regular backups, so restored to a new HDD.

This is ambiguous. A precise description of exactly WHAT you did to "restore to a new HDD" is needed.

Did you use some 3rd-party vendor software product? If so, what is the type of backup job you ran that produced that "regular backup", from which you "restored"?

Did you use a Win7 "system image"? This would have imaged not only the C partition (which was most likely "primary" initially and is now "logical") but also the critical "system reserved" 100MB "primary" partition that has no drive letter but is the "active" partition on the drive itself. Both "system reserved" and "C" would be part of a Win7 "system image", and both of these would have been restored if you recovered to the new hard drive using Win7 and this "system image".

The fact that the DISKMGMT screenshot shows no "system reserved" partition, which would be "primary" and "active" suggests you did not use Win7 and a "system image".

Also, the screenshot show that your new C partition on the new hard drive is "logical", which is not the way it was originally on the old drive. So again, this could not have been the result of using a Win7 "system image" to recover from.

Now the fact that the C-partition is "logical", and the fact that you're missing the "system reserved" 100MB partition in which the boot manager files are located (and were located on your original hard drive)... this all indicates that your "restored from regular backup" process is flawed.


The fact that Partition Wizard shows this drive as "unallocated" is yet another issue, and actually would be very helpful to the author of Partition Wizard as a "laboratory rat" so this bug can be chased down and fixed. It's not the first time it has been reported. I'm of the opinion that whatever program you used to "restore from regular backup" is at fault here (or maybe it's the type of "regular backups" you were doing that really wasn't suitable for this type of new-drive transplant).

I suspect "system image" would have been a better choice for recovery to the new hard drive (if you had a "system image" to recover from), but unless you provide details about your backup/restore program and procedure this is still pretty mystifying.

Anyway, your current Win7 drive which shows no "system reserved" primary partition as "active", but instead shows C as a "logical" and "active" partition... well, that's not right. Actually Win7 can be installed onto a "logical" partition (though by default it goes onto a "primary" partition), but the problem really is the missing boot manager files and the "system reserved" partition where they lived.