[AWolfyOut]

Hello, my laptop (Toshiba Satellite C655-S5142) recently tried to update to Windows 8.1 PRO...and the power shut off and then it got stuck on the black screen A disk read error occurred Press Ctrl+alt+del to restart. It was previously running on windows 7 and my uncle had installed windows 8 a few days ago and it was running fine until that happened. Now it goes to the bios when I press F12 but it wont let me repair or nothing. :/ Was really hoping for some help here! Can anybody give some advice? Do I need to get a new HD?

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Sorry to hear your computer will not boot.
It is possible the PC had a hard drive problem before the upgrade. If you are not able to access the recovery partition at all then I would advise getting a new hard drive then trying to recover your data from the old hard drive using an IDE/SATA to USB adapter.

[jscrizzle]

Sorry to hear your computer will not boot.
It is possible the PC had a hard drive problem before the upgrade. If you are not able to access the recovery partition at all then I would advise getting a new hard drive then trying to recover your data from the old hard drive using an IDE/SATA to USB adapter.

[Ztruker]

Did the power outage occur during the Windows 8.1 upgrade? If so, try running chkdsk as follows:

How to run chkdsk from the Recovery Console on Vista and Windows 7

• Boot your Vista or Windows 7 installation DVD
• When you see "Press any key to boot from CD or DVD", press Enter
• At the "Install Windows" screen, click on Repair your computer at lower left
• At the System Recovery Options screen, make note of the drive letter assigned to your boot drive (normally C:) and click Next
• At the Chose a Recovery Tool window, click on Command Prompt. You will be sitting at X:\Sources directory
• Run chkdsk
• If you did not note the drive letter of your boot disk, you can enter bcdedit and look at the osdevice line to see what it is.
• Type chkdsk c: /r and press Enter (use the letter from above if not C:).

Let it run to completion undisturbed.

Vista or Windows 7: If you don't have a install DVD, you can download a legal copy here:
Windows 7 Direct Download Links
Download Official Windows Vista RTM with SP1 Setup Files (32-bit and 64-bit)

Make sure you get the same version you have installed: 32 or 64 bit; Home Premium, Pro or Ultimate.
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I know you were updating from 8 to 8.1 but using a Vista or Windows 7 install DVD to run chkdsk will work and will not affect anything.

Once chkdsk complete reboot and see what happens.

[AWolfyOut]

Thank you for the responses, I am currently trying to download the Windows 7 Recovery. My system came pre-installed so had no discs..I am going to try your way. My Setup Utility won't boot, it saves and restarts and the same black screen ctrl restart option comes back on. The power outage did happen as the Windows 8.1 was installing, then it went to this black screen. Any help or solutions would be really really appreciated. Thank you!

[Ztruker]

See how things are chkdsk has been run or run Startup Repair (up to 3 times).