Win 10 won't start on Toshiba Satellite L70C-12H - "Preparing Automatic Repair"

[Bruce]

for the moment, getting one of the drives in the loft and installing that into the laptop will confirm we are on the right track before lashing out on a new SSD.

if we can get the laptop detect the USB stick, and to install Win10 on to the drive from the loft, then we can do the same to a SSD.

you don’t need a 2.5" bay on the desktop, just need to plug in the power cable and SATA cable into the laptop drive and just leave it hanging within the chassis for now - just want to see if the drive is readable.
unless the drive is the older IDE pins but surely we aren’t talking that vintage are we??

as for Mac’s - hmmmm… they aren’t any better, they aren’t worse, they are just different. and sadly for me at least, the difference is a negative. like it or not, the world is Microsoft, getting a Mac will only limit your interactions with others. and of course, how can you quantify the cost!

good luck on the tinkering - best learning curve there is.

[Michael_Hooker]

First stage done, the back is off the Toshiba - see photo. Having watched the video I referred to, with the BIOS battery clearly labelled, I was thinking that maybe replacing it would be a good idea. But then I was quite surprised to see that I don’t have one. Huh? The usual googling produced a note that later Toshibas powered the CMOS from the main battery. Next stage, I thought head for the loft, then dismantle another laptop. But before that, see what happens if I try starting it from the USB stick. I reattached the battery without putting the underside of the case back on, turned the machine right side up, plugged in the USB stick and switched on. This got me an instant BIOS prompt to set the date and time, then save and exit. When I exited I got flashing USB stick, the same old Toshiba and hieroglyphics screen and then, wait for it, the second photo below. It was supposed to be the second photo, but first is where it has somehow ended up. I didn’t attempt to install Windows or repair as there is nothing yet to install it to or repair. But it is such a relief to see something different!

The presence of the HDD seems to be what is preventing “normal” operation. Next stage is an adventure up the ladder into the loft to see what I can find.

Michael.
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[Michael_Hooker]

Now I have three 2.5" HDDs and three dismantled laptops from the loft ops:. The first two are tiny and the connection the wrong shape, but the third, on the right, looks to be just the job - it’s 640 GB.

It actually has Windows 10 on it from an Asus machine with a stuck fan assembly I can’t yet source a replacement for. Should I stick it in and see what happens without the USB stick first? And then with the USB stick?

Thanks.

Michael

[Michael_Hooker]

An[ATTACH type=“full”]8603[/ATTACH]and here’s the photo of the drives…

[Bruce]

that’s good news indeed, that Windows Setup screen (the ‘first’ pic in post #18) is indeed the screen we have been hoping for.
so well done Sir on that front. (y)

and yes, use the 640GB drive (the 3rd one) as it is the only SATA one you have it seems. it’s almost 10 years old, but that’ll be fine.
at best, it’ll out live both of us, at worst, we only want it to prove we can do want we intend before lashing out the money on a SSD.
don’t worry about the reduction in capacity from 1TB to 640GB - I doubt you were using much on the old drive anyway.

so yes!, whack it in and it should simply boot. eventually when Windows kicks in, it’ll say “bloody hell, all my hardware has changed” and want to update drivers and then notice that Windows is inactivated due to all those hardware changes.

see how that goes and that’ll determine whether you reload Windows from scratch.
the next hurdle on the horizon may be product activation - but tiny steps first, let’s jump the immedaite hurdles first!

[Michael_Hooker]

OK, thanks, but there may be a delay, I want to clone that HDD first, I still have hopes of getting that particular laptop working again once I find a new fan. It has run happily for some hours since I put the HDD back in, sure it’s a bit hot but I haven’t been working it hard, I just downloaded Macrium Reflect and looked around at options for SSDs etc. With a new fan and an SSD it could prove very useful when my wife’s just as ancient laptop inevitably dies. Fans are available, but it seems two types have been used in the same model, and the problem is persuading the seller to reveal exactly which one their advertisements relate to! One of them won’t fit, as others have discovered after purchase.

You’re right, there isn’t much on either the Toshiba or the Asus. As I said earlier, I got into the habit of using USB drives for the “big” stuff like music and photos, and the cloud for documents, just for the convenience of having them available everywhere. I just don’t need big disks now.

I’ll let you rest a bit now, while I plan the transfer of the Asus HDD to the Toshiba. I did remove it from the Asus and put it back again and the machine still works, so as you can see I’m not entirely useless with a screwdriver. I don’t really remember it much now, but I built my first computer from a kit of parts, soldering components to the circuit board. Sure it was only a Sinclair ZX81 that plugged into the TV and you couldn’t do much with it before there was an internet and email, but it was a start. Going further back, I built a digital clock with Nixie tubes from a kit and it has been running virtually non-stop since 1973 and keeps perfect time. I wish everything electronic was that reliable.

I don’t know much about product activation, I hope it’s not something that’s going to make us fall at the last hurdle.

Thanks again for your help so far.

Michael

[Bruce]

product activation all depends on where the Windows version comes from: with the PC at retail purchase, or upgraded by yourself from a previous version of Windows.
don’t worry about that now, let’s get the laptop running again, with Win10, and in due course, we’ll tackle the activation side of it.

[Michael_Hooker]

Hi Bruce, I am now in a room full of dismantled laptops and & desktop, with enough cables snaking around to give Indiana Jones nightmares.

First report: I took the case off the HP desktop so I could try the Toshiba HDD in it as we had discussed. What should be easy doesn’t look so easy. The desktop interiors I recall had collections of HDD and power connectors bundled up, all you had to do was slide a disk into the tray, screw it up and attach some of the spare connectors, though there was always some tricky adjusting of switches that never did what the instructions said, just the opposite usually. Anyway, it looks like I would have to disconnect the HP 3.5" HDD (and therefore the Win 10 OS) and use the connectors to attach the Toshiba HDD. Is it worth it?

Second report: I have surprised myself by successfully cloning the Asus 640GB HDD to a new SanDisk 480GB SSD using Macrium and a USB3.0 to SATA adapter cable. I took the HDD out of the Asus and plugged the SSD in its place. Switched the Asus on and glory be, it not only started starting up, it finished starting up almosts instantly (by comparison with everything else) and I was on the desktop in no time at all. I was expecting all sorts of trouble.

So now I had a 640GB HDD that doesn’t matter quite so much if it gets trashed to plug into the Toshiba, that is exactly what I did and switched on. Windows did not start up. I Got a blank screen with a hyphen at top left for a while, then a message: No bootable device ** please restart system. Hmm. The HDD was a bootable device when it was in the Asus, was it not? Anyway, I switched off, plugged in the magic USB stick and started again, pressing F12 as it started. It brought me back to the same Windows screen as message #18 . So, Bruce, does that mean that the Toshiba laptop is working and I should go ahead? What happens next, please? I presume that either Windows gets installed on the HDD (after wiping it) or there is a failure to communicate with the HDD/non-bootable device.

Michael

[Bruce]

yep, plug that HDD into the problematic laptop, have the USB in their as well, and get to that screen as in post #18.

then you just follow the obvious path, it doesn’t ask anything challenging, one of the first screens shows all the current partitions and offers you the chance to remove them all - do that!

then it’ll chug along and install that Win10 version off the USB stick and onto the HDD.

and yes, this is the stage we find out if the laptop id good or not.
hopefully you will get to the end of the install without incident. you remove the USB stick and boot normally, then it’s all yours to customise.
or, the installation process highlights other faults and then you decide if it’s all worth it or not.

[Michael_Hooker]

Thanks Bruce, but no luck yet. Just three abbreviations that mean nothing to me! The Asus HDD is apparently the wrong sort, an EFI drive is needed, whatever that is.

I found this on YouTube, which may help. No harm in trying, is there?

Michael

[Michael_Hooker]

The YouTube video worked and I’m now up to “getting files ready for installation (38%).” This is progress - I hope.

Michael

[Michael_Hooker]

Woohoo! Thank you much Bruce for your help and patience.

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All I had to do was sign in to my Microsoft account with the email address and password I had before, there was no problem about authentication.

The machine has already installed a Windows 10 update and is now “adding some new features, this could take a few minutes”. Sigh, none of their new features have ever been of the slightest use to me. If the non-Microsoft programs I want to use run, that’s all I care about. The most useful feature for me would be one they got rid of long ago: the ability to have several copies of File Explorer open and swish files between them with the mouse.

Now I have the confidence, I shall spruce the machine up Replace the HDD with an SSD now I know how. Get a new battery if I can (the old one never kept going as long as it should have done, even when new). And hoover out all the mysterious bits of stuff that have been sucked in over the years. The machine has already installed a Windows 10 update and is now “adding some new features, this could take a few minutes”. Sigh, none of their new features or many of the old ones have ever been of the slightest use to me. If the non-Microsoft programs I want to use run, that’s all I care about. The most useful feature for me would be one they got rid of long ago: the ability to easily have several copies of File Explorer open and swish files between them with the mouse (which btw you can do on a Mac ).

Michael

[Bruce]

re-opened just for a few days to tidy up some lose ends…

Michael,
good news indeed, and well done on persevering!

as to multiple File Explorers - of course Win10 can do that.

I use the keyboard shortcut of Windows + E
so hold down the Windows logo key (bottom left of keyboard) and press the E key.
that’ll start File Explorer (used to be called Windows Explorer, hence Windows+E) and repeat that key combo for the number of instances you want.

if that satisfies you for now, we’ll re-close this thread again.
of course feel free to start a new thread in the future for any further issues.