[Frogstitch64]

Arrived at work this morning to find a Toshiba NB255 notebook sitting on my desk. I'm the office manager, we don't have inhouse IT. G2G has helped me with my own personal computer and a friend's, so I'm back!

I booted up the notebook and got:

PXE-M0F: Exiting PXE ROM
Operating System not found

Rebooted and hit F2 to enter set up.
Checked sequence of drives and HDD/SSD is listed first.
That's as far as I can get on my own.

Help?

Thank you!

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Vista or Windows 7?

Windows 7: Read here, see if Repair your computer helps.

Vista: Read here: Repair you computer

[Ztruker]

Vista or Windows 7?

Windows 7: Read here, see if Repair your computer helps.

Vista: Read here: Repair you computer

[Frogstitch64]

That was informative but didn't tell me HOW. The sticker on this notebook says it's Windows 7 Starter. There is no disc drive, so no systems discs to fall back on.

If I hit F8 on Startup - like the information via the link you provided says to do - it doesn't make a difference. It still tries to start and then says it can't find the OS. If I hit F12 or F2 I can get to the set up utility, but there's nothing there about Startup Repair ... or Running in Safe Mode ... nothing like that.

Sorry, I need the basics. I am not a computer person.

[Ztruker]

Is the hard drive shown in BIOS Setup. Not the Boot order/priority, but the somewhere else?

There should be a recovery partition on the hard drive that you can access by pressing a Fn key during boot. Which one varies with each manufacturer.

You said you have a Toshiba NB255 notebook (actually a Mini, but which one?). There are many NB255 models, need the complete number. Then we can look at the users guide to see how to restore the computer to it's factory new state.

I found this for a NB255-245which may be the same for yours:

To recover the original factory image using the utilities on your
computer’s internal storage drive:
1 Make sure the computer is turned off.
2 Press and hold the 0 (zero) key on your keyboard while
powering on the computer.
3 A warning screen appears, stating that when the recovery is
executed all data will be deleted and rewritten. Click Ye s to
continue.
4 When the Toshiba Recovery Wizard opens and the Selecting a
process screen displays, select Recovery of Factory Default
Software and then click Next.

Before you do this you need to backup your data as this will remove everything on the hard drive during the recovery process. You can try accessing the original drive by booting Puppy Linux from a Flash drive. See here for how to create one: Flash Puppy. Also see the part at the bottom of that page labeled: How to boot the PC from a USB pen drive

Boot Puppy from the flash drive. It will boot and run totally in ram. After you get it running and you're at the Puppy Desktop, you can copy data to the flash drive or to other flash drives or to another computer on your network.

Quick guide for saving data from Puppy Linux:

After you get to puppy desktop, click on the drives icon. It looks like a flash drive, top row. It will list all the drives connected your computer.

Click on the Red icon for the drive you want to mount, perhaps a flash drive. Puppy will mount the drive. The drive icon turns green when its mounted.

Minimize the drives mounter window. You will need it again in a few minutes. Drag the right edge of it sideways to shrink it to its narrowest size, then drag the window to the right edge of the screen.

Now click on the icon that looks like a filing cabinet (kind of yellow) on the main drive. It should already be green. You will see a list of all the folders on the main drive (Usually C:). Shrink that window to the narrowest you can. Drag that window to the left side of the screen. At this point you should have 2 windows open on your desktop, Flash drive on the right and C: on the left. Go back to the folders on the C: drive. Click on the Documents and Settings folder, then your user name or all users. Find the folders that has your data then drag and drop the folder with the data you want to make copies of to the flash drive window.

Your options are to move, copy, ect. Select COPY. If its to big you will have to open the folder and drag and drop individual files until the flash drive is full.

Click on the drives mounter you minimized earlier. Unmount the Flash drive by clicking on the green icon. You will once in awhile get error messages when unmounting the drive, ignore them. When the flash drive icon turns red again its safe to remove the flash drive.

Plug the Flash drive into the other computer then copy all the data files ( I drag and drop) to the other computer. Make sure the other computer can read them.

Now delete the data on the flash drive, then take it back to the other computer and repeat until all data is copied.

Above taken from here: Help with Windows XP (Won't Start) on GeeksToGo.

[Frogstitch64]

You'd have to tell me how to check to see if the hard drive is in BIOS set up. I don't know what that means or how to find out.

This is an NB255-250 and it's not the same as the other model. I looked up the manual for this one at the same site, and did get into the Advanced Boot Options. The only option not listed there on this computer is "Repair Your Computer", which I believe is what I want.

I did try to start it holding down the "0" key. It started, something with the word "recovery" flashed at the bottom of the screen but too fast to read. Then it said it was loading Windows files. Got the little circle showing progress loading files, the circle quickly disappeared leaving me with a blank screen except for the mouse arrow which I can move around.

[Ztruker]

If pressing 0 started the Recovery process but it's not completing then you may have a hard drive problem, though I can't say for sure. The Users Guide for the 250 looks the same as the one I had for the 245 and has the same directions for doing a Recovery starting on page 49. I would try it a few more times and see what happens.

It would be a good idea to contact Toshiba and see how you are supposed to reload Windows 7 when the hard drive has problems.

You could take it to a reputable computer shop and have them check it out.

You can try to fix this yourself but you will need a Windows 7 Starter DVD that you can create a bootable flash drive from. With that you can try formatting the drive and install Windows 7 Starter from the flash drive.

The easiest method is to use Universal USB Installer – Easy as 1 2 3. Select Windows 7 from the drop down menu and your off.

You'll need a 4GB or larger flash drive.