My toshiba laptop was working perfectly when switched off a couple of days ago. When I turned it on the following morning it wouldn't come on. It was completely dead. No lights or anything. I left it a day and it switched on, booted as far as the windows logo and then froze up. The power light which is normally blue on the laptop came up blue and orange!? It wouldn't turn off so I had to disconnect the battery to try rebooting. It wouldn't come on after that but now it boots up the same and freezes after leaving for around 1 day. I have tried to boot into bios but it freezes up the same.

It freezes on bios boot after the mouse initializes. I can't get as far to re-install or repair windows. Its very weird how it won't even turn back on and I have to wait a couple of days before it will even attempt a boot up again.

The Laptop is a toshiba equium a100-233

If anyone has any advice for this, it would be very much appreciated.
Cheers H.

Wish I had more to offer, I had a similar situation with my Acer laptop 2 times. The first time I had sent ti into repair and they returned it stating, could find no problem. I started it and it worked.

The second time, (week later) was ready to send it back as I though there must be something wrong.
I turned it off and eventually was ready to get it sent back again, so I turned it on, and it booted up with no problem and has worked ever since without problem.

Of course no explanation.

So you could send to repair depot if still persists, just in my situation, a week later totally turned off, it worked again.

Hope all works itself out and hopefully not a service center

I have got a similar problem... I was trying to install xp over vista and after the partition I restarted but it won't boot, not even POST. Help... it doesn't even go to BIOS

Try steps below

How to Format Drive and Install Windows from Scratch
Geek to Live: How to format your hard drive and install Windows XP from scratch

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Originally Posted by seahwk83

try steps below

How to Format Drive and Install Windows from Scratch
Geek to Live: How to format your hard drive and install Windows XP from scratch

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That won't work... someone said to me that I have to find and push the reset button on the laptop... will that work.

If you have an xp disc and you can boot to CD, the steps above should work for you.

As far as the laptop goes, depending on how old the laptop is, there may be a hidden partition with the recovery on it or you would have received recovery (restore) discs with laptop

What model laptop do you have and I will see if I can find anything out for you

But I will have to do this in morning, so post your model make and # and will check it out

Thanks for the response.
I do have an XP SP2 disk, the laptop won't even boot from the cd... I tried. The steps above if the laptop can boot. Mine doesn't boot,doesn't go into BIOS.
It's a lenovo N300 2000.

Please help me

I cannot access any lenovo sites, either they do not work and are down or I do not have credentials to view page

Did the machine not come with recovery software, maybe check out user's manual for instructions on how to get PC back to factory defaults - will be starting from scratch but at this point now, does not look like any other options

I would contact lenvo supprt and just copy and paste your original question and what you have tried to this point and see what they may have to offer as suggestions

And inquire about getting back to factory defaults as you cannot do anything right now

Contact Lenovo - United States

The laptop did not come with recovery software. How can I revert back to factory default without booting? The lenovo website suggested that I reset the C.P.U CMOS battery. Is that a good option? Will it work? Ill have to find the url of it and then ill paste it on this thread for you to see. I'm getting impasient now and I just need it fixed.

yes, that would be something you can do if you feel comfortable with opening the laptop and removing the baterry yourself

the battery(s) would be about a nickel or quarter size and you would remove them for about 4 hours to be give it plenty of time for the BIOS to lose whatever charge it may hold and allow the charge to dissipate

so you would remove the bbatteries and wait and then replace and that should fet the BIOS back to default values see if you can get into bios and can go from there

OK thank you... I don't feel comfortable with that but it looks like I don't have a choice.

Why do I have to remove the battery for four hours? Won't it lose charge as soon as it is removed?

I still want to revert back to XP once it is fixed... I do have an XP SP2 disk... does that disk have the necessary drivers for the laptop to work with XP?I gues once the laptop is fixed then I should just use the steps you gave me above... but they are very confusing to follow.

Not remove there battery that keeps laptop running when unplugged but actually open the laptop case and remove the quarter size batteries

This will cause the BIOS to lose charge and in doing so, when you put the batteries back in, the BIOS is set back to system default as it was when you first got the laptop

Many don't feel comfortable with this with laptops and if not comfortable a service repair shop would do the same thing

But again, if not comfortable, Don't Do It - Let someone else like the repair shop take responsiblilty for the laptop and repairs

repair shop is cheaper than new laptop

Khakhi:

Ok, this little trick works on an IBM ThinkPad when it just won't boot. I haven't worked with Lenovo extensively since December 08 but I believe they still have this. If it just won't boot (not fails to load Windows) but, just doesn't do anything, try this: remove the battery and power supply then hold the power button down for 50 seconds, then push and release it 6 times. Reapply the power and see if it reboots. YES I know it sounds weird, but, that's how you can reset the digital switch and internal battery on a thinkpad.

I yestadae took my laptop to an I.T technician friend of mine. He opened the laptop and removed the hard drive and then switched on the laptop... the laptop immediately went into setup and my friend accessed BIOS. The problem it doesn't go further than BIOS... no matter what you do in BIOS to try get it to load windows it doesn't load windows. When in BIOS and you select resotr factory defaults and press F10 to save and close the screen just becomes black and it does nothing. My friend then said the hard drive is bust and needs to be formated because I messed up the master boot sector on the drive... then again how do I format my drive if it doesn't even load windows or boot? He suggested I put my hard drive into another laptop and format it there. Will that work? What is your suggestion... I need it to be working... guys help. IDEAS, ill try it out OK.

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removed the hard drive and then switched on the laptop

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Without the drive in the PC it booted to BIOS?

Then with drive back in, it still would not boot to system?

If above are true, you may need to get new hard drive for it and start from scratch

As if this issue only is happening with the drive in and cannot boot after BIOS as been reset, the BIOS is having problem with recognizing the hard drive which would not let it boot to system

-Now above would be true if the first 2 questions above are true

Cause if you cannot boot to a cd, there would be no way of installing anything to this PC

One thing that you can try here, again if above is true
-Remove the hard drive from the PC and boot it with a bootable disc, if the information comes on the screen by booting to the disc, this would pretty much indicate that the hard drive is bad

-If same results with a known working bootable CD, it would be more than just a hard drive, if at all the hard drive, but the system board itself

Without the drive it wentto BIOS.

When the drive was put back in, it then went to BIOS but doesn't go further than that (system).

Y would I need a new hard drive? Can't I just format the one I have somhow? The BIOS does recognise the drive... it even gives the manufacter name of the drive

It doesn't boot from the cd drive too... even whenthe xp disk is in... the xp disk is the bootable disk right?

There is chance that the xp disc may just have xp on it and not bootable

-But most of the time the xp disc would be bootable

-Do you have any other cd's that are installation disks for a program that you can just test to see if the PC will boot to it

Basically at this point, you ineed to get this laptop to boot with an installation disc but something is preventing that from happening -

With this download, BartPE is a bootable disc that when PC is turned on, it boots an operating system with need of the hard drive - All information is on this disc

You would need to download and burn to a disc - Instructions of how and what is listed there right above the download link

On this link, look for this link in Blue and download and instructions are right above it

Download PE Builder v3.1.10a - self-installing package
Bart's Preinstalled Environment (BartPE) bootable live windows CD/DVD

Once this is done, boot laptop with BartPe disc in drive and see if it can boot into itself

Either or, post back and will see -