[GrantD]

My girlfriend's laptop has seemed to crash. She went to start it up and got a startup recovery fail message. Now it will search for the problem for close to an hour then say "cannot repair automatically". After that it only gives you the option to click finish and shuts down. I have tried safe mode and system restore, however neither fixes the problem. It doesn't even have any saved restore points. I have no idea what to do next or what could've caused this problem. She has a Toshiba A665-S5170 Satellite running Windows 7. Any help would be much appreciated.

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From the Windows Advanced Boot Options Menu, select Last Known Good Configuration (advanced), see if that helps.

If not, you can try restoring to what Toshiba calls the Out-of-box state, or Factory New state. Starting on page 63 of the Users Manual found here: Satellite A665-S5170 support

Before you do this, make sure you save any data she doesn't want to lose, pictures, documents, music, etc. There are many ways to do this on a non-booting system. One of the easiest is to boot a Live Linux Mint Mate USB flash drive and save data from there. It's very "Windows" like so easy to use.

See here: Emergency Kit - save your files from a dead OS

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 If your system offers a choice of Windows® 7 32-bit or 64-bit
operating system, select one at this time. If not, skip to step 4.

4 A warning screen appears, stating that when the recovery is
executed all data will be deleted and rewritten. Click Yes to
continue.

5 When the Toshiba Recovery Wizard opens and the Selecting a
process screen displays, select Recovery of Factory Default
Software and then click Next.

6 The Recovery of Factory Default Software screen appears.
Select Recover to out-of-box state.

7 Click Next.
A confirmation message displays reminding you that all data
will be lost during the recovery process. Be sure to save your
work to external media before proceeding (see “Backing up
your work” on page 107).

8 Click Next to begin the recovery.
When the process is complete, a message displays indicating
that the internal storage drive has been recovered.

9 Press any key on the keyboard to restart the computer.

Once that's done you will need to run Windows Update multiple times until all updates are downloaded an installed. After that, restore saved data, install software, etc.

[Ztruker]

From the Windows Advanced Boot Options Menu, select Last Known Good Configuration (advanced), see if that helps.

If not, you can try restoring to what Toshiba calls the Out-of-box state, or Factory New state. Starting on page 63 of the Users Manual found here: Satellite A665-S5170 support

Before you do this, make sure you save any data she doesn't want to lose, pictures, documents, music, etc. There are many ways to do this on a non-booting system. One of the easiest is to boot a Live Linux Mint Mate USB flash drive and save data from there. It's very "Windows" like so easy to use.

See here: Emergency Kit - save your files from a dead OS

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 If your system offers a choice of Windows® 7 32-bit or 64-bit
operating system, select one at this time. If not, skip to step 4.

4 A warning screen appears, stating that when the recovery is
executed all data will be deleted and rewritten. Click Yes to
continue.

5 When the Toshiba Recovery Wizard opens and the Selecting a
process screen displays, select Recovery of Factory Default
Software and then click Next.

6 The Recovery of Factory Default Software screen appears.
Select Recover to out-of-box state.

7 Click Next.
A confirmation message displays reminding you that all data
will be lost during the recovery process. Be sure to save your
work to external media before proceeding (see “Backing up
your work” on page 107).

8 Click Next to begin the recovery.
When the process is complete, a message displays indicating
that the internal storage drive has been recovered.

9 Press any key on the keyboard to restart the computer.

Once that's done you will need to run Windows Update multiple times until all updates are downloaded an installed. After that, restore saved data, install software, etc.

[GrantD]

Thank you for the tips. I will try this today.

[GrantD]

I tried the linux mint usb boot but it did not go as planned. It said usb failed on the boot screen. This is what I did...
1. downloaded linux mint mate ver. 14
2. extracted files to a blank usb drive
3. Clicked f12 at startup and selected usb as boot source, (it did read that a usb stick was plugged in)
It seemed not to read what was on the drive or I missed a step.

Thanks again.