Laptop Won't Boot

[Shack]

Well Nell's Bell's

Had a funny thought last night when poking around. Just out of luck and brain storm, I hooked up the crashed Hitachi HDD to it's PC (Toshiba) via USB and the enclosure, went in to bios/system utilities, boot config and sure enough it showed as a drive (no hard drive in C:. Completely empty) on "F:". Brought drive F: up to the top to boot first, restarted laptop, got windows failed to start menu and selected windows start up repair and wouldn't you know it, I got the Vista Recovery Wizard

Drive F: showed up as a drive with Toshiba and Boot: in the safemode style window in Recovery Wizard, but drive F: (the crashed Hitachi showed no GB usage bar (other did). Went forward and got the menu for for all the Recovery Programs. While this was occurring, the little diode light was flashing on the enclosure (a good sign ). Out of the five option, the only one that would go forward was Windows start-up repair. Clicked it and it when into the diagnostics and about a minute later a prompt came up in the repair status window that it was repairing the an issue, but could take hours. So I let it just keep going and went to bed.

Got up the morning and it said issue was repaired . Still unsure I clicked out of the repair window and look at the located drives window. Sure enough the GB usage bar displayed right under drive F:. I clicked shut down computer and let laptop shut down. Pulled power cord and battery. I then unhooked the Hitachi HDD from the USB enclosure and put it back in drive C:. Bing, bang, boom (still got the window failed to start screen/menu but selected start windows normal) what do you know ? I was back in my Vista sign in screen and logging into vista Sure enough my desk top displayed and right away I hooked up my external back up HDD and started to recover my entire system. I left for work and ready to (hopefully) do a system restore to factory specs when I get home. The complete back up is nice and some of the software I have was purchased on-line and not I found not all my NTSF files where able to be recovered (that darn 32bit vista system I have as my host HDD). If anything I just hope the back up goes threw, because the box is waiting to ship it back to Toshiba.

If it does not go threw (locks up during and back to square one), I am going to try accessing my entire system for back up via a friends laptop that is the same exact PC and my Toshiba. He is willing to donate because I know I would do the same as him. I will just direct (hooked up as a slave) the entire conteents of drive F: when my HDD is hooked as USB Slave to go into my extrenal HDD...

I think we got this nailed down and hardware is NOTthe issue

I figure I would post this in here (got video of it happening and what I did also ), cause on the net (from days of searching), there is Jack Squat about people actually getting this done. Hundreds if not thousands of people begging for help, but very little detailed info to be had. You kind of have to take this and that from here and their to get even started.

Thanks Upnorth and other for the your help! Hopfully (although what I am doing technically might be just a tad ricky) it will all come back. If not I figure what do I have to loose ? Toshiba would just wipe everything gone and trash the hard drive anyways.

[Shack]

Well, good to back on my good laptop

Got home, back up done of all software, no virus or junk, wiped HDD, reinstalled to factory specs and transferring files back over I wanted.

I will put together a video of what I did.

Maybe the norm in the IT word, but I could not find anyone who fixed the Vista Black/Blue screen of death via drive F: and a USB enclosure, with as much of a lockout I had to my PC.

Funny!

I am a little smarter and life is good!

I am sure this over the heads of some, but it feels good! Now to call Toshiba and see what they want/will do. At least cancel to the service call to the depot!

It may help someone down the road. If you are having any issue with Vista and the Black/Blue screen of death, give me an e-mail. It is fresh on my mind on what to try and rule out. Maybe fix!

[Whoaru99]

I do it the easy way these days. Full drive image every week with incremental every day.

If there is problem, no screwing around. Just format the drive (or replace it) and restore the image.

[Shack]

W99 you are so right.

Seagate Freeagent Desk 1TB Ext HDD is now in my hardware mix

[Dbl]

I run a Windows Home Server. Backs up all my computers nightly automatically with no input from me. I've already had an OS main drive hard drive failure on a desktop(six month old drive) since getting my server up and running. It was a simple matter of installing a new drive, drivers for the NIC card to see the server and the WHS formatted the drive. About 3 hours later the server asked if I wanted to boot to my new drive and viola...my computer was up and running completely as it was the night before, complete mirror image, no re-installing programs, drivers, OS, nothing it is all there.

I also have access to my server from any internet connection and can remote into any computer on my network. I can share huge files (think movies, etc.), photos and such with anyone that I give password access. All of this and much more for a mere $100. I used an old computer that was laying around and installed the software and a couple of 1TB drives and I had my own server. I now no longer worry about hard drive failures or even software or hardware issues. I can just use the last good backup and I am right back to the last good state.

My photo business depends on complete reliability and redundancy. This solution gives me all that and more.