[laura033]

I'm having a few problems restoring my old laptop to factory settings. It's a Toshiba Equium A110 laptop, running windows XP home ed.

I've tried pressing F8 during start up, which leads to a page where I can choose to boot in safe mode, debugger mode etc (but no repair computer option), and also when pressing F12 it will show a set-up page, but I can't find any restore factory settings option here either.

I don't have any reboot disks unfortunately, I don't think the laptop came with any.

I would appreciate any help or advice - many thanks!!

(On a side note: I'm selling the laptop for parts as it is faulty, but I wanted to restore to factory settings to remove personal data etc that may have been stored on the laptop. So far I've cleared everything off of the laptop, deleted all internet files + cookies and such, and deleted the original user account. If system restore doesn't work, is it safe to give the laptop over or will there still be personal information on the machine?)

[123Runner]

Hi laura033 and

Since it is faulty and only going to be used for parts I would run DBAN (link in my signature below).
This will be a iso program on a CD that you boot the laptop with. It will write 1's and 0'2 to the drive and is a security wipe.

If you want to restore it to the factory settings. This may not work if the hidden partition is bad or missing. Plus since you say the laptop is faulty, that may affect the restore.

How to restore to factory settings

123runner

[twinkie10]

Hi 123 runner. When I try to follow your steps to recover my factory settings (on my toshiba laptop a135-s4417), I am not given an option for system recovery. Is there another method to recover without the disks? Thanks.

[rshaffer61]

Try this method:

Toshiba:

To access the recovery partition do the following...

Power off the laptop.
Hold down the 0 (zero) key and turn the laptop on. Keep holding down the zero key until the TOSHIBA logo appears.
Start tapping the zero key repeatedly at this point.
Stop if the unit beeps or when the TOSHIBA logo disappears.
The screen should flash HDD RECOVERY MODE for a second and then it will load the Toshiba recovery program right from the hard drive.

Note that this erases all data, and reloads all factory default software.

[twinkie10]

I have already tried this, but see post above..... no HDD screen. Any other ideas?

[rshaffer61]

Quote

(On a side note: I'm selling the laptop for parts as it is faulty

,
What fault is it having?

Quote

but I wanted to restore to factory settings to remove personal data etc that may have been stored on the laptop. So far I've cleared everything off of the laptop, deleted all internet files + cookies and such, and deleted the original user account. If system restore doesn't work, is it safe to give the laptop over or will there still be personal information on the machine?)

You could create a new user account with admin rights. Boot into that and then delete your old account. That should get rid of any personal information.
The other option is to borrow a OEM XP disk the same as what is installed on your system... Home, Media or Pro.
Then format and reload the system. You will need to get all the original drivers from the Toshiba site to install everything.

[jacksen]

my laptop will not enter the HDD recovery mode.its a toshiba SA80-131. it wont boot from cd-rom either. i have a windows xp installation cd. the laptop did not finish a previous installation and keeps restarting windows setup but it seems it will not read from cd anymore as it brings out an error which says the system does not have enough resources to continue setup. i need to reset factory defaults. Tapping zero on startup wont work. if i press f8 and go to advanced options none of the options seem to fix my problem. it is unable to enter safemode because previous installation did not complete. i need it to detect cd rom.how can i reset this computer

[rshaffer61]

OK so either you don't have the recovery partition on your HD. Your XP installation disk is dirty or scratched.
The system is not booting to the cdrom drive.
The cdrom drive is faulty.
You need to enter the bios and change the boot sequence by doing the following.

To change Boot Sequence in your BIOS

Reboot the system and at the first post screen (where it is counting up memory) start tapping the DEL button
This will enter you into the Bios\Cmos area.
Find the Advanced area and click Enter
Look for Boot Sequence or Boot Options and highlight that click Enter
Now highlight the first drive and follow the directions on the bottom of the screen on how to modify it and change it to CDrom.
Change the second drive to the C or Main Drive
Once that is done then click F10 to Save and Exit
You will prompted to enter Y to verify Save and Exit. Click Y and the system will now reboot with the new settings.

Hopefully you have already put the XP cd in the drive before all this. If everything is setup correctly you will get a black screen with the following message in the upper left corner:

"Push Any Key To Boot To Cd". When you see this then push any key and the cd will take over. Then follow the prompts or if you need assistance we will help.

[jacksen]

xp cd works ok used it to start up another machine. will the option of using external cd rom to boot the laptop work?

[rshaffer61]

Only if your bios allows for booting to a USB device.

[jacksen]

it does not support boot from usb. what can i do?

[rshaffer61]

Then you would need to replace the cdrom.
It appears at one time it did read the cdrom since you stated earlier it failed a previous installation.
Did you try the steps in post 8 to see if you could boot to the cd again? If you can get it to boot to the cdrom then you need to format the main partition and then install XP on the system. Then we will have to find all the drivers for the laptop so you can install them.

[jacksen]

it does not give me the option to format the whole partition it goes straight to load the incomplete windows installation, attempts to restart setup and keeps giving the error of setup does not have enough resources to continue and reboots. the cd rom did work at one time but i might have disabled it somehow while trying to reinstall the incomplete installation.

[rshaffer61]

Is this a genuine Windows Installation disk, Upgrade disk, branded disk like Dell?