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General discussion

Computer won't load anything but Windows

by August723 Jun 21, 2007 1:22PM PDT

My computer is a Toshiba Tecra M4 laptop. Windows was being slow and I decided to wipe the system and reinstall windows. However, I couldn't get Windows to read the CD's on start-up. If I put the CD in and started the computer the power light and everything lights up but the screen stays black. The last thing I did was tell it to start up in safe mode and now it won't start anything at all! The screen stays black permanently and I can't do anything with it. Any ideas?

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2 Posts
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A couple questions...
by John.Wilkinson Jun 22, 2007 7:12AM PDT

* Did you successfully reinstall Windows or are you still looking forward to doing so?
* With the CD in the drive, are you prompted to "Press any key to boot from CD" after you boot up?
* Can you enter your system BIOS suing the designated key combination? If so, ensure that the CD-ROM drive is set as the primary boot device.
* Have you tried inserting your Windows CD into another computer and seeing if you can access it there? It could be that the CD is not bootable and needs replaced. (Any visible scratches? Did you apply an adhesive label to it?)
* Try downloading and burning a copy of DBAN on another computer and run it on yours. That will tell you if there's a problem with your laptop booting to the CD-ROM drive as well as let you wipe the hard drive, in case your computer is insisting upon booting to it and cannot. (Note: DBAN will erase all files and settings, so don't use it unless you have a recent backup.)

Let us know.
John

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a couple of answers...
by August723 Jun 23, 2007 4:11AM PDT

Thanks for your reply.

I was not able to reistall windows.

I get no prompt at all when I boot up. The screen stays black and the power light goes on, the fan starts up, and I can hear the computer working, but nothing comes on the screen. This occurred only after I told it to always start in safe mode. Before that it would only start in normal mode and I never got a picture on my screen until the blue screen prompted me for my password.

No key combinations I've tried worked, including the combination for getting into BIOS. Before I set it to always start in safe mode( back when I could still get into windows) I tried tapping different F keys and the screen would just stay black until I hit the power button to turn it off and then turned it back on.

Checked the CD and it is fine.

Tried DBAN as you suggested and it didn't work.

A first step might be to get it to load in normal mode instead of safe mode so I could at least get into some stuff.

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