Call out to a computer genius on board!

[Fate]

Ok, I have a Toshiba laptop I bought of a person I know. It worked great for a couple months and now comes up with a hdd password prompt on the little window in the front of the computer and will not load past the Toshiba start page. I looked up online and they say the hard drive is probably going bad, and that this is a common issue with Toshibas. Sometimes the computer will ask for this hard drive code and if you do not know it you ard screwed. Well, I don't know it. I bought another hard drive but need to find a way to transfer my Windows onto the new hard drive. I do not have disks for the windows proffessional xp version I have on the laptop. I do not want to go out and buy another one. I got the computer to bypass the hdd password once but don't know how I did it. I have another laptop, a Gateway I am on right now. Is there a way to access the hard drive? And once I do, is there a way to transfer my windows to another hard drive?

 

[TXBusa05LE]

Try #1

Open the BIOS setup menu
Go down to the HDD password
Type your current HDD password and press Enter
Now press Enter twice at the requests for the new password and confirm new password
Press END and Y

 

[TXBusa05LE]

Try #2

Press ESC and Power button together
Enter the passwords if prompted
Press F1 to enter the BIOS

Select the password field (it shows Registered)
enter bkspc or space
enter your existing password
press enter
It prompts for New password
Just enter
Repeat for verify
Now password is Unregistered

 

[TXBusa05LE]

Cloning

 

[Skywalker]

Cloning or Imaging is the way to go and Symantec Ghost is great! Have used that for over 10 years and a superb top not product! I would like to point out this as well and I have not used the cloaning tool onboard so don't know if it will work out or not but this CD download is a IT guys dream.... http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

 

[BusaCruise]

winPE......that and a slipstreamed xp intstall.....what more could one want?

take the drive out...get a 25.00 usb enclosure for it...remove the data you want, reset the cmos, format or write zeros to the drive and get a fresh xp load in there.

chances are that if it is failing then it has been subjected to abuse. Toshiba is just about the ONLY brand laptop I would buy for myself.
New HDD are cheap..... just about $1.00 for 1GB in the small 2.5" drives.

 

[Fate]

(TXBusa05LE @ Aug. 18 2007,16:12) Try #1

Open the BIOS setup menu
Go down to the HDD password
Type your current HDD password and press Enter
Now press Enter twice at the requests for the new password and confirm new password
Press END and Y

Don't have original code, previous owner says he did not set one and does not even know what one is.

 

[Fate]

(BusaCruise @ Aug. 19 2007,01:53) winPE......that and a slipstreamed xp intstall.....what more could one want?

take the drive out...get a 25.00 usb enclosure for it...remove the data you want, reset the cmos, format or write zeros to the drive and get a fresh xp load in there.

chances are that if it is failing then it has been subjected to abuse.  Toshiba is just about the ONLY brand laptop I would buy for myself.
New HDD are cheap..... just about $1.00 for 1GB in the small 2.5" drives.

You kind of lost me there a little, have to talk slow for me, I am kind of computer challenged

I don't care about the info on the drive except for windows.

I bought a 60 gig drive new off ebay, tried to load windows on it and it said there was no drive. The original drive was a 40 gig with same rpm. Do I need something to get the computer to recognize drive?

 

[el stumpo]

Hate to say this, but you may not be able to recover... I need to double check on Toshibas, but with IBMs, the password also locks the hard drive. If you don't know it, even removing it from the laptop and connecting it to a USB drive will not work.

What model Toshiba is it?

 

[05BusaLe]

Call Toshiba tech support and request a restore CD which will have windows and all the drivers needed for that laptop. All you will need is the ser. no. as well as the mdl. no. from the bottom of the laptop! I had to do this for my Compaq laptop 2 years ago.

 

[Fate]

(whitele @ Aug. 21 2007,19:40) Hate to say this, but you may not be able to recover... I need to double check on Toshibas, but with IBMs, the password also locks the hard drive. If you don't know it, even removing it from the laptop and connecting it to a USB drive will not work.

What model Toshiba is it?

It is a Toshiba Satelite 5105-s501, I have another hard drive and computer starts to load xp then says cant find a hard drive, it is different gigs though. may have to let bios know about different drive?

 

[Fate]

(05BusaLe @ Aug. 21 2007,19:45) Call Toshiba tech support and request a restore CD which will have windows and all the drivers needed for that laptop. All you will need is the ser. no. as well as the mdl. no. from the bottom of the laptop! I had to do this for my Compaq laptop 2 years ago.

Will try calling in morning.

 

[el stumpo]

PM me. I can help you out. Give me your phone # and I'll call you - much easier to find out what's going on

 

[Fate]

pm sent

 

[CrashTestDanny]

Hey man - bring the drive over to my place and I'll plug it in and see what we can get off of it. I run mostly Toshiba laptops and already have a USB enclosure for 2.5" drives for just this sort of emergency.