drkmstr104
July 27th, 2009, 07:20 AM
Okay, so basically I am trying to fix a friend's laptop (Toshiba Satellite M45, Intel Centrino 1.6Ghz, 1GB ram, 100GB HDD) which originaly had Windows XP SP2 on it. I have absolutely no idea what he did to it, but so far there have been 3 other people aside from me that havent been able to fix it.
I started out trying to install a fresh copy of Win XP SP3, many times, but the install failed around 30 times, it only installed successfully once when I went through DOS to delete a file that wasnt installing properly and had install skip it, but even then it got a BSOD 0x00000007b startup error! So I decided to install Ubuntu instead. I started out with 8.10, had trouble booting to the "Try without changing anything" from cd, bios is set to check the cd rom first for boot priority, so it goes to the initial menu, but when I select the method of which I want to proceed the loading bar gets stuck halfway across the screen and the laptop restarts.
Then, with some sorta fluke I was able to boot it once! I decided to install it then and there, went through the formatting, partitioning, set everything up, install finished up, and then when I try to boot it up, same thing. The progress bar freezes, comp restarts, and loops.
Then I tried Ubuntu 9.04, with very little luck. I was able to get it to boot once to the desktop, but it froze when I tried to look at the wifi settings (to see if it detected the wifi card properly), and ever since then, no luck on booting.
I can sometimes get the progress bar to go further than halfway by holding down the Ctrl key, and once even the login screen, but the second I let go of the key it restarts.
I have tried at least hundreds of times to install an OS on this laptop, and I am almost ready to throw in the towel and call it kaput.
Has anyone had a similar experience before? If so, what did you do to fix it? What would you do to try and get it to boot?
Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks in advance!
-Mike.
I started out trying to install a fresh copy of Win XP SP3, many times, but the install failed around 30 times, it only installed successfully once when I went through DOS to delete a file that wasnt installing properly and had install skip it, but even then it got a BSOD 0x00000007b startup error! So I decided to install Ubuntu instead. I started out with 8.10, had trouble booting to the "Try without changing anything" from cd, bios is set to check the cd rom first for boot priority, so it goes to the initial menu, but when I select the method of which I want to proceed the loading bar gets stuck halfway across the screen and the laptop restarts.
Then, with some sorta fluke I was able to boot it once! I decided to install it then and there, went through the formatting, partitioning, set everything up, install finished up, and then when I try to boot it up, same thing. The progress bar freezes, comp restarts, and loops.
Then I tried Ubuntu 9.04, with very little luck. I was able to get it to boot once to the desktop, but it froze when I tried to look at the wifi settings (to see if it detected the wifi card properly), and ever since then, no luck on booting.
I can sometimes get the progress bar to go further than halfway by holding down the Ctrl key, and once even the login screen, but the second I let go of the key it restarts.
I have tried at least hundreds of times to install an OS on this laptop, and I am almost ready to throw in the towel and call it kaput.
Has anyone had a similar experience before? If so, what did you do to fix it? What would you do to try and get it to boot?
Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks in advance!
-Mike.