[KOTARE33]

So, my Satellite has been playing up, it's getting old I guess.

I've attached my laptop specs to this post.

For context, 3 of the 4 USB ports no longer work, the DVD drive head is misaligned, the FW port is sketchy, and the SD card slot is a no go. It runs very hot, and I've been having software problems where I get constant hang screens when searching for something through Explorer, the spinning wheel of nothing. At least the HDMI port works...

I had a faulty HD that was dying. It has my old Windows OS on it. I've been booting into a new HD with Ultimate trial installed.

I took the faulty HD out last night after finding the OEM keys on it for Home Premium. I have a license for Home Premium, but I've been testing Ultimate before moving to 10. My Ultimate trial is now over.

I thought that the failing HD was responsible for the hang time with Explorer, but there's been other problems of late. Sometimes it will just reboot for no reason. It hasn't happened much to me, strangely my GF gets it a lot though.

Oh and lately, sometimes on booting it emits some beeps and won't boot to any BIOS options or any graphic, but instead just shuts down. It'll do this repeatedly until I let it rest for a few minutes, then it's fine.

I thought this problem might be heat related, as it does and always has run hot, so I got a USB fan for it to sit on.

So, that's the back story.

I want to reinstall Windows Home Premium on my good HD for the free upgrade to 10. Last night I downloaded the Windows 10 upgrade and got to the screen where it asks for a product ID, realized I didn't have one for Ultimate, rebooted to my old failing HD, got the OEM keys for HP, restarted it and now...

...it does one of two things. It'll power on, the HD light will flash and then stops flashing, the fan works, but it stops at the black screen. It won't get as far as BIOS options, it just boots straight to the black screen. In this scenario, the HD light will also flash when I power it down.

Or, it boots into Windows desktop (Ultimate with no key, on the good HD as my failing one is now removed), but freezes within a few minutes.

When it booting to black screen, if I power it down and leave it for 10 or 15 minutes it'll boot to Windows every time, but will freeze, as per above.

I've tried power cycling it, taking the battery out, and booting into safe mode. I can boot into safe mode sometimes, it runs more stable there, but sometimes it crashes there also. I ran two anti virus/rookits programs - they didn't find much of note.

There are no system restore points.

There are no peripherals plugged in.

Strangely enough, after taking the bad HD out, I put the good one in the bad one's bay. Immediately after taking the bad HD out, I booted to Windows desktop, I plugged in my SD card USB reader to format an SD card for reinstalling Home Premium, but it started asking for drivers for the SD card and something else (can't remember what, maybe WIFI?), which if never does. Then it froze, again.

I thought it might be a problem with the pins in the HD bay, so I swapped the good HD back to its old bay, but no luck.

Just to be clear, no matter how warm the laptop is, if I successfully boot to BIOS or Windows, it will ALWAYS go straight to black screen in the next start up. I've reset BIOS settings to default. The only big driver update of late was a graphics card update.

Anyone have any ideas??? I have a new laptop in I'm but I won't have the $$$ until another month. I use this laptop for work (audio) and am currently unable to develop or complete any current [email protected]

Attached Thumbnails

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Edited by KOTARE33, 26 November 2015 - 11:57 PM.

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Hello KOTARE33,

 

Try starting the notebook with no HDD fitted to see if you are able to access the BIOS and if the notebook still powers itself down.

 

Next thing that I suggest that you do is to clean out as much dust as possible from the inside of the notebook, see example cleaning guide here I would recommend removing the Ram first, a basic guide to this here your USB fan by the way is putting more load on the computer and therefore generating more heat.

 

Some pointers on the information that you have provided;

 

..it does one of two things. It'll power on, the HD light will flash and then stops flashing, the fan works, but it stops at the black screen. It won't get as far as BIOS options, it just boots straight to the black screen. In this scenario, the HD light will also flash when I power it down

 

 

 

If you cannot access the BIOS it has nothing to do with Windows it is hardware related.

 

The HDD activity LED blinking and then stopping suggests that the presence of a HDD is detected by the BIOS chip but the HDD itself has issues.

 

The computer is not booting to a black screen, for a computer to "boot" the OS must load and as you know that is not the case here as you have said that you cannot even access the BIOS.

 

Strangely enough, after taking the bad HD out, I put the good one in the bad one's bay. Immediately after taking the bad HD out, I booted to Windows desktop, I plugged in my SD card USB reader to format an SD card for reinstalling Home Premium, but it started asking for drivers for the SD card and something else (can't remember what, maybe WIFI?), which if never does. Then it froze, again.

 

 

The replacement HDD is alien to the computer as in the MB and Windows cannot correctly communicate with the hardware until all of the relevant drivers have been installed, typically by starting with the chipset drivers.

 

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[phillpower2]

Hello KOTARE33,

 

Try starting the notebook with no HDD fitted to see if you are able to access the BIOS and if the notebook still powers itself down.

 

Next thing that I suggest that you do is to clean out as much dust as possible from the inside of the notebook, see example cleaning guide here I would recommend removing the Ram first, a basic guide to this here your USB fan by the way is putting more load on the computer and therefore generating more heat.

 

Some pointers on the information that you have provided;

 

..it does one of two things. It'll power on, the HD light will flash and then stops flashing, the fan works, but it stops at the black screen. It won't get as far as BIOS options, it just boots straight to the black screen. In this scenario, the HD light will also flash when I power it down

 

 

 

If you cannot access the BIOS it has nothing to do with Windows it is hardware related.

 

The HDD activity LED blinking and then stopping suggests that the presence of a HDD is detected by the BIOS chip but the HDD itself has issues.

 

The computer is not booting to a black screen, for a computer to "boot" the OS must load and as you know that is not the case here as you have said that you cannot even access the BIOS.

 

Strangely enough, after taking the bad HD out, I put the good one in the bad one's bay. Immediately after taking the bad HD out, I booted to Windows desktop, I plugged in my SD card USB reader to format an SD card for reinstalling Home Premium, but it started asking for drivers for the SD card and something else (can't remember what, maybe WIFI?), which if never does. Then it froze, again.

 

 

The replacement HDD is alien to the computer as in the MB and Windows cannot correctly communicate with the hardware until all of the relevant drivers have been installed, typically by starting with the chipset drivers.

 

Tip

To ensure that you receive notification of any reply to your thread please click on the Follow this topic tab, top right corner above your OP.

[KOTARE33]

Right on, I'll try that in the morning - thank you

There's no replacement HDD though, I've been running both of them for the past 18 months or more...

Will report back. Thanks again.

[phillpower2]

There's no replacement HDD though, I've been running both of them for the past 18 months or more...

 

 

Do you mean that you have been swapping the two HDDs in and out of the same Toshiba Satellite notebook for the past 18 months.

 

Polite reminder

 

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You are welcome btw 

[phillpower2]

Not heard back from you KOTAR33, do you still require assistance or is the issue now resolved, an update would be appreciated.

[KOTARE33]

Hi there.

My sincere apologies. I've been away doing monitoring at short notice. There are still places in the world with no Internet connection, and the mountains of Cambodia is one of them...

Okay, bear with me my friend, I will attempt your suggestions now. I'll also found some compressed air to give it a quick clean..

[KOTARE33]

There's no replacement HDD though, I've been running both of them for the past 18 months or more...

 
Do you mean that you have been swapping the two HDDs in and out of the same Toshiba Satellite notebook for the past 18 months.
 
Polite reminder
 

Tip
To ensure that you receive notification of any reply to your thread please click on the Follow this topic tab, top right corner above your OP.

 
You are welcome btw 

No, I mean that I have 2 HDD bays. The original HDD had Windows HP but was failing, so I put another HDD in and have been booting Into Ultimate on that HDD. I very rarely access the old HDD through windows explorer, maybe only 10 times in the past year, but as it has been failing, perhaps it's been slowing my system down and partially response Doble for the blue wheel of death I've been getting...

Anyway, I'll follow your instructions now and will report back.

[KOTARE33]

Right, so I did this.

 

Cleaned the vents with compressed air - they were a little dusty.

 

Reseated the RAM and cleaned the RAM bay with compressed air.

 

Took out the HDD.

 

Started the laptop, it loaded to a black screen saying OS missing.

 

Put the HDD back in.

 

The laptop booted as far as the Windows load screen and then shut down and restarted, I let it do this three times.

 

Then I booted directly into safe mode, that was OK.

 

Then I restarted from safe mode and now I am in windows OK. It took longer to load than usual but it seems OK. I am currently updating my antivirus, but Avira is giving me a "the event log database could not be initialized" error message, so i am going to reinstall it.

 

I've been on windows for 10 minutes now and there's been no crashes, so that's a bonus so far.

 

What do you suggest I do now?

[KOTARE33]

Okay, so I uninstalled Avira, then I restarted the laptop following the prompts after uninstalling.

 

This time, the computer is doing the thing were it does a double beep when I power it on.  It doesn't load any screen, just the black screen.

 

I don't know what the double beep means.  And I am at a loss as to what to do now.

 

When I was in Windows, everything was working smoothly.

 

FYI, the HDD flickers lightly, but no more than when the laptop boots successfully.

 

So, now I am back at square one and currently cannot get into my OS. Do you have any further advice?

[KOTARE33]

And now, after doing doing the double beeping thing and refusing to load to BIOS, it now boots to OS, after hanging at the black "starting Window" screen (with the Windows logo), for a bit longer than usual.

 

Do you know what the double beeping sound means on a Toshiba?

 

I will buy a new laptop, but I'd like to give this one to my GF, so what can I do to fix these issues?  Will they be hardware issues alone, or may there be some software issues?  Is it worth loading Windows HP, like I originally wanted to do, with the intent of loading Windows 10 from there?

 

Is there any software I can run to test the performance of the hardware to see that it is performing okay? I did get some previous help with this laptop a few years ago in this forum when I last had the hanging blue circle of death problem... it fixed it, but it did come back.

 

Let me know.

[KOTARE33]

Hmm, mid virus scan, it froze again, after being fine for 20 minutes.

 

The beep sounds is LONG SHORT SHORT pause SHORT SHORT, if that helps?

Edited by KOTARE33, 09 December 2015 - 03:58 AM.

[KOTARE33]

Okay, so according to this website: http://www.bioscentral.com/beepcodes/phoenixbeep.htm 

 

1-2-2 DMA failure The DMA controller has failed.   Replace the IC if possible

 

Sound right to you?

 

Edit - not sure if that is right, as this is distinctively long short short PAUSE short short, with no pause between long and short...

Edited by KOTARE33, 09 December 2015 - 03:58 AM.