[VerityX]

Hello there. I am having an interesting problem that has been developing in my brand new Toshiba Satellite over the last few months. I'll give a brief description of the problems and then give specs and tell you what I've tried so far.

The problem began after the computer woke up from sleep. The touchpad failed to work. No driver errors in Windows Device Manager. I uninstalled and reinstalled several times anyway. No improvements. After many restarts, the touchpad worked again seemingly without cause for change. Then, within weeks, the s key started working only intermittently, and then slowly the whole bus seemed to go out (keys 2wsx), but what was odd is that they would still work intermittently, sometimes for weeks without problem. The keys' fiunction was not improved in safe mode. I tried a system restore and it would freeze and hang without success. I got extremely busy with school (I'm a physics major) and let it go for a while. The keys did not seem sticky or in any way different or damaged. Pressing the keys for 30 seconds would often cause them to work, without any added pressure. Yet sometimes, it would not. This all could have been totally unrelated, but I want to include anything pertinent.

Then I admittedly did something stupid and I shook the computer while it was on and upside down to see if some crumbs might fall out of the keyboard. When I grabbed this very structurally poor Satellite on the right of the touchpad and turned it upside down, it made a horrible screeching sound and I let go right away. I didn't realize it but this is right above the HDD. I put the computer down and the touchpad was now frozen, but the keys worked. I was able to save my work in Word and shut down the computer. 

Upon restart, the computer went into a Toshiba diagnostic loop that begin with the windows 8 "oops something is wrong.." blue screen, then went to Toshiba Starting Automatic repair, a Toshiba "repairing disk errors. this may take several hours" screen and a Toshiba "diagnosing problems" screen, which would each hang for an hour on a black screen and then the computer would restart and start the whole cycle over.

I entered the BIOS and changed settings back to defaults. No improvements. I changed the boot order and tried to boot from CD. The same startup repair loop would happen and fail to boot from CD. The only way to move forward was to select "HDD recovery" from the BIOS. Then a black screen appears and hangs for an hour, and then finally the Windows 8 Recovery environment becomes available. This happens reliably.

From here I was able to get a Linux Live CD to load once and was able to browse through my entire file system on the affected C drive with Midnight Commander. The files all appeared to be in the proper order. I'm new to Linux and got stuck, restarted and couldn't get it to boot from CD since.Windows into command prompt takes 1 hour to enter the recovery environment and open command prompt. From command prompt I ran chkdsk C: and it detects 200,000 or so files, 9,000 or so large files without any problems, then proceeds to indexes but gets stuck on USN journal with this message: a disk read error occurredc0000185 insufficient disk space to fix the usn journal $j data stream failed to transfer logged messages to the event log with status 50.

From the command prompt X:\windows\system32 I typed C: and hit enter. Then the command prompt spit out something like "the device could not be accessed due to an I/O error." I know it seems like the HDD is corrupted, but how badly? It sounds like I can hear the HDD running if I put my ear up to it. It sounds normal.

Can someone help me to diagnose what is wrong with the system and especially the HDD? Is there a way to tell if the HDD simply became disconnected, or if it is totally toast, without opening up the computer? The laptop is under warranty with Toshiba, but I believe they may not fix the HDD since I probably ultimately messed it up by shaking it. Sending it in is going to cost me money and I live in poverty as a student. If I can just get some of my computer science friends to put a new hdd in, it'd be much better than paying to ship it to Toshiba for no reason, but I just want to be sure this is what is wrong first..... and that means getting some help checking up on the health of the other components of the system. Or is this silly and it'd be way better to send it in to Toshiba? I'm new to the whole warranty thing, I never buy new. Paying for shipping this computer to Toshiba AND a new HDD might be out my price range, however. But, if the keyboard really is going out too, I'd never be able to afford to fix all of that and sending it in may be a good last-ditch effort.

Most interesting, in command prompt and the Linux Live CD, the faulty keys seem to work fine, although it'd take more observation to be sure. Any help would be really appreciated. Here is a list of specs on the laptop and my best memory of what programs I installed on it. 

Toshiba Satellite L50D-b
8 GB RAM
Windows 8.1
1.8 Ghz AMD a4
1 TB HDD with 800 gb free space
Has a recovery partition
I have a Knoppix Cd, SystemRescue Linux Live Cd, Windows 8 recovery CD and windows 7 backup for a different computer, I have a flash drive with Knoppix as well (failed to boot from USB), and three virtual drives labelled G, H and I,  I think.

powerISO
7zip
Microsoft powerpoint
Movie Maker
Adobe Reader
Spotify
Windows Defender
Ad Muncher
Peer Block 
uTorent
Skyrim
Borderlands
microsoft office, etc
Maple Maplesoft
Matlab
GnuPg

DivX
Windows Media Player
GIMP
jMol
I installed malwarebytes right before it crashed 

Thanks for any help. It'd be neat to get a system recovery image, but most of my irreplaceable stuff was backed up to Google Drive so not a big deal. 

tl;dr Windows 8 was being glitchy. I shook my computer. Boot failure ensues. automatic repair loop ensues. computer will only boot from cd when it feels like it. windows recovery options takes an hour to load. using command prompt to execute chkdsk is successful on all volumes but c:, fails on USN journal: not enough memory. trying to access c: gives i/o error.  glitches from windows 8 are not present in the command prompt.
 

Edited by VerityX, 12 April 2015 - 11:55 AM.

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   VerityX,

 

As you are not bothered about the data on the HDD you could try accessing the Toshiba Recovery Partition by continually holding down the 0 (zero) key when you restart the computer, do be aware though that there may be an area on the HDD that was damaged when the notebook was upended, the screech was most likely the actuator arm scraping the top platter.

 

Let us know how you get on with the above.

 

TIP

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[phillpower2]

   VerityX,

 

As you are not bothered about the data on the HDD you could try accessing the Toshiba Recovery Partition by continually holding down the 0 (zero) key when you restart the computer, do be aware though that there may be an area on the HDD that was damaged when the notebook was upended, the screech was most likely the actuator arm scraping the top platter.

 

Let us know how you get on with the above.

 

TIP

To ensure that you receive notification of any reply to your topic please click on the Follow this topic tab at the upper right corner of the page. 

[VerityX]

Hello! Thanks for your reply. I used the 0 key on startup and it allowed me to choose yes/no for HDD recovery immediately, but after choosing yes, the laptop continues to take about 35 minutes to an hour on a plain black screen before bringing up the same system recovery options.

Do you mean I should access the Toshiba Maintenance Utility? The options here are 2 different ways to delete the files on the HDD.

Since my first post, from command prompt I was able to run chkdsk successfully on all the volumes(partitions?) on the drive except for c: which continues to have the USN journal error. sfc /scannow is unsuccessful due to a "pending startup repair." diskpart list drive, drive detail and partition detail show all the volumes as "healthy," whatever that means. Trying to refresh the system from the system recovery options accessed by pressing 0 gives the error that the 'drive is locked, please unlock the drive and try again' or something of the kind.

 

Edited by VerityX, 12 April 2015 - 12:07 PM.

[phillpower2]

Hello VerityX,

 

Not sure which command you tried but if not done try chkdsk C: /f /r /x

 

The “/f” tells CHKDSK to fix any errors it finds; “/r” tells it to locate the bad sectors on the drive and recover readable information; “/x” forces the drive to dismount before the process starts, regardless of the results I suspect that you may need a new HDD.

 

Depending on the answer to the above you may need to test the HDD itself, we will help with this if it is needed.

[phillpower2]

Not heard from you for a while VerityX, , do you still require assistance or is the issue now resolved, an update would be appreciated.

[VerityX]

Hey Phillpower2, sorry for the delay. I can get really busy during the school term, especially the week before midterms. I ran the chkdsk with /f /r /x as you suggested and it still got stuck on verifying the USN journal, with the same message I mentioned above that there was not enough memory to fix it. Thanks again for your continued help.

Edited by VerityX, 16 April 2015 - 01:16 PM.

[phillpower2]

No problem and thank you for the update 

 

I ran the chkdsk with /f /r /x as you suggested and it still got stuck on verifying the USN journal, with the same message I mentioned above that there was not enough memory to fix it

 

 

By memory do you mean storage space on the HDD.

 

Run the HDDs diagnostics tool;

Make sure you select the tool that is appropriate for the brand of your hard drive but if unsure of the brand Seatools for DOS works well with most of them http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=287

Depending on the program it'll create a bootable floppy or a bootable DVD/CD.
If the downloaded file is the .iso type use ImgBurn to burn the .iso file to a DVD/CD disk depending on your OS (select "Write image file to disc" option) and make the disk bootable.
 

RE ImgBurn: please use the custom install and uncheck the attached foistware such as "Install Entrusted Toolbar etc

[VerityX]

I'm not sure how to interpret the error message, whether it means hdd space or RAM. Keep in mind everything takes hours to work, even the recovery environment, so maybe it is RAM. This is the exact error message I was referring to:
"a disk read error occurredc0000185 insufficient disk space to fix the usn journal $j data stream failed to transfer logged messages to the event log with status 50."

In order to run the HDD diagnostic tools, I need to figure out how to get the computer to boot from CD or USB, which I have not been able to reliably do. It only booted from cd once. This is because on Windows 8, the only way to boot from CD or USB is to select this option from the recovery environment and then allow the computer to restart. When the computer restarts to boot from cd, it just jumps back into the automatic repair loop. It only actually booted from CD once.

Thanks for your continued help.

[phillpower2]

Two possible reasons that you can receive the said message: 1: A bug in Windows 8/8.1. 2: There are too many bad sectors on the C: partition for all of the required data to be copied and then written to a clean area of the same C: partition.

 

In order to run the HDD diagnostic tools, I need to figure out how to get the computer to boot from CD or USB, which I have not been able to reliably do. It only booted from cd once. This is because on Windows 8, the only way to boot from CD or USB is to select this option from the recovery environment and then allow the computer to restart

 

 

The boot sequence is changed in the computers BIOS and is nothing to do with Windows, it could not be any other way as you would not be able to install Windows onto a new HDD.

 

To access the BIOS try tapping the F1 or the Esc key when you restart the notebook

[VerityX]

Phillpower2, thanks for the info on what can cause that error message. As I indicated in my original post, I tried changing the boot order in the BIOS. The computer simply does not respond to this change. It refuses to boot from cd or USB even though these are listed first in the boot order. Even with the boot order changed in the BIOS, the only way I ever got the computer to boot from CD was by selecting "use media" and "EFI CD" from the windows recovery environment.  Boot order looks like this:

ODD
USB
Network/LAN
HDD/SsD

I have checked both the USB and CD in another computer and both work. I have rebooted several times with these settings, but the computer still ends up trying to run automatic repair when it reboots. Sometimes it will briefly flash the "press any key to boot from cd" message, but then it very quickly switches back to the automatic repair. Weird, huh? This is why I'm thinking Windows 8 glitch (I'm thinking it isn't the motherboard since I was able to do all kinds of things from command prompt).

EDIT: Ah! I just got a CD to boot by using CSM boot instead of UEFI boot in the BIOS. I will now try to run the HDD diagnostics. More later.
 

Edited by VerityX, 28 April 2015 - 06:32 PM.

[VerityX]

Alright, I have an HGST HDD which is Western Digital and I finally found an iso file that was for a bootable CD here http://www.hgst.com/...egacy-downloads

This recognized the hard drive (first I used seatools which did not), and it said some information about the device including size and "SMART status good." There were no further options to test the drive, however.

Edited by VerityX, 29 April 2015 - 12:11 AM.

[phillpower2]

So you disabled the Secure Boot setting by doing the following in the BIOS;

 

1: Selected the Security tab and set the Secure Boot to Disabled.

2: Selected the Advanced tab and went to System Configuration.

3: Set the Boot Mode to CSM Boot.

4: Pressed the F10 key to save and exit.

5: Pressed the F12 key at the “TOSHIBA” logo screen to toggle between the bootable devices and choose the medium which you wanted to boot from**

 

** The boot sequence should be 1: ODD. 2: The HDD. 3: USB. 

 

The Network/LAN should not be enabled as a boot device on a computer that has not been specifically set up alongside the required external hardware.

 

Regarding the HDD diagnostic tool, did you download the correct version which is

• HGST Windows Drive Fitness Test (WinDFT)

 

I note that you are aware of how to use the edit tab, if you have any further info to add while waiting for a reply to a tech related topic please use the edit tab so that nothing gets overlooked, this can happen when a thread has more than one page.

[phillpower2]

Not heard from you for a while VerityX, , do you still require assistance or is the issue now resolved, an update would be appreciated.

[VerityX]

I still could not get WinDFT to work because I ran out of CDs (accidentally burned FeatureTool to my last CD!) and it wouldn't load to a USB. So, for anyone else with this problem, I will summarize what I did to fix it (keep in mind, this fix not only fixed my boot problems, it also fixed all the keyboard and touchpad glitches I was having from Windows 8.1). 

First I created a Debian Live CD using the ISO debian-live-8.0.0-amd64-gnome-desktop here and the program UNetbootin here (bootable USB creator).

I then entered the BIOS (on Toshiba Satellite, press f12 on startup) and changed TWO options. I had to disable "secure boot" and I ALSO had to switch from UEFI boot to CSM boot. The explanation is that in Windows 8, booting from an external source requires that the "legacy hardware" be enabled, aka CSM boot (It is not possible to disable LAN and keeping HDD at the bottom of the list works just fine in the Toshiba Satellite's version of BIOS).

I then booted from the Live USB. I chose to enter the Live environment from the GRUB menu.  From the Live environment, I chose Activities->Drives and selected my HGST HTS... hard disk in the top right corner, click the settings gear icon and choose "Initiate SMART self-test." I ran the quick scan and was told that my disk status was OK on all assessments, but with 26,000 bad sectors. The live environment here has an option to back up the drive by creating a disk image if you like. I chose to use the Live desktop to access my C: drive directly through the File explorer. I then manually copied over all folders I wanted to save to my external hard disk by simply cutting and pasting. 

I then used the "Drives" tool again on the Live desktop to format the disk. Choose the correct partitioning for your drive (mine was GUID Partitioning Table). After the drive is done being formatted, you can restart from the Live desktop and then choose "graphical install" this time from the GRUB menu. Using just the debian-live-8.0.0-amd64-gnome-desktop.iso on the USB, the Live USB can install a fully functional but limited version of Debian Linux on your hard drive.

Or, instead, choose to insert a CD with a different OS to install (note my keyboard/touchpad glitch seemed associated with Windows 8, I would avoid installing that OS at all costs). 

If you choose to install Debian, then simply follow the steps in the graphical install (if a network device cannot be initialized due to missing firmware, skip it for now). Choose how you want the drive partitioned, select the right drive, and confirm your selections. Afterward, the new OS boots up. Simply connect an ethernet cable (if the wireless chipset is not recognized) and open Activities->Terminal. Log in as root by entering

su

And then you will be prompted to enter the password that you set during the graphical install. Enter the password. Now type:

aptitude update

And press enter. Then type:

aptitude full-upgrade

and press enter (source). Aptitude will now update your full system, and you have a full working Debian OS! Enjoy. I ran SMART self-scan again after the install and still found that the disk assessment read "OK" but now with only 1501 bad sectors. I think most of the damage to the HDD was soft and only 1501 of the sectors had physical damage. We will see how long the HDD lasts! Thanks for all your help and I hope this long discussion helps someone else out when Windows 8/8.1 will not boot and the recovery environment won't work!

 

Edited by VerityX, 04 May 2015 - 11:38 AM.

[phillpower2]

Thank you for your comprehensive update and data recovery steps VerityX 

 

I ran the quick scan and was told that my disk status was OK on all assessments, but with 26,000 bad sectors.

 

 

Time for a new HDD then