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    cjcdallas's Avatar
    cjcdallas Posts: 63, Reputation: 6
    Junior Member
    		  
    #1

    Jul 3, 2007, 05:55 PM
    Toshiba Lap Top not booting up
    I have a Toshiba Satellite Pro laptop and it has worked quite well always. Today it had a black screen and is asking me for a - Built-in HDD Password
    First off why would it ask for that and if we never put one in where would we find it? I have searched through all the info we have and can not find a thing about it.
    Worse off we have some pictures on the hard drive we can not replace and foolishly thought they would be safe there. It will not allow you to go into the set up menu and does not even prompt for it.
    Is there a way to fix this?Any help would be great!!
    Thanks,,
    ScottGem's Avatar
    ScottGem Posts: 64,966, Reputation: 6056
    Computer Expert and Renaissance Man
    		  
    #2

    Jul 3, 2007, 07:00 PM
    Does anyone else have access to this machine. If you can't get past the POST password, you probably need to reset the CMOS.

    There are other threads here that deal with that.
    cjcdallas's Avatar
    cjcdallas Posts: 63, Reputation: 6
    Junior Member
    		  
    #3

    Jul 4, 2007, 06:19 AM
    Quote Originally Posted by ScottGem
    Does anyone else have access to this machine. If you can't get past the POST password, you probably need to reset the CMOS.

    There are other threads here that deal with that.
    Just my wife and I but she does not do anything on it but e-mail.
    I was able to get into the menu to be able to put in an HDD password but there is not one registered in the system. So I did not do anything other than hit "home" to restore defaults. I then hit "esc" to get out of that screen and it went into the regular set up like it normally does. After it rolled through everything it has now prompted me to insert the set up disk. I have that but it does state that I would lose everything on my hard drive.
    So my question now is will I really lose everything or simply lose the other installed programs I have put in since purchasing the CPU? I know it will overwrite all my program files but will I lose my pictures and music that is on the hard drive? I do not have too much confidence in working with these things and I am VERY nervous about it...

    Thanks again...
    benn11's Avatar
    benn11 Posts: 1,036, Reputation: 43
    Ultra Member
    		  
    #4

    Jul 4, 2007, 07:18 AM
    Try and get someone with an HDD cover that can be used externally and check whether you can retrieve anything by connecting to another PC...
    ScottGem's Avatar
    ScottGem Posts: 64,966, Reputation: 6056
    Computer Expert and Renaissance Man
    		  
    #5

    Jul 4, 2007, 02:12 PM
    If the "setup disk" is a recovery CD, then you you will lose everything since it will overwrite the HD.

    Have you tried e-mailing Toshiba? Even though its out of warranty, they may provide free support via E-mail.
    cjcdallas's Avatar
    cjcdallas Posts: 63, Reputation: 6
    Junior Member
    		  
    #6

    Jul 4, 2007, 02:57 PM
    Quote Originally Posted by ScottGem
    If the "setup disk" is a recovery CD, then you you will lose everything since it will overwrite the HD.

    Have you tried e-mailing Toshiba? Even though its out of warranty, they may provide free support via E-mail.

    Thank you for your help. I finally got frustrated and just was going to blow it off until tomorrow. On my way back from town I stopped at Best Buy and their CPU guys said they would check it out for me. Took it back and the hard drive would not spin at all. So I guess that means a new hard drive. We are still going to get in touch with Toshiba to see if they will possibly cover it since the warranty just recently expired.
    Thanks for the assistance and answers...
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