[wekas]

Hi - Hoping someone can help me get my Toshiba laptop running again. I'm a beginner, so I need simple instructions. My operating system is Windows XP Home Edition.
Recently, my laptop started running very slowly and then a couple of days later it crashed. When I open the computer I get a black screen with Press F2 for System Utilities or Press F12 for Boot Menu.
F2 takes me to Phoenix BIOS Setup Utility. Can I use this to get underway again?

F12 shows my boot menu setting as HDD(not sure what this is). When I enter Setup I get a message
Intel (R) Boot Agent GE v1,2,31
Copyright (C) 1997-2005 Intel Corporation
Initialising and establishing link

After a couple of minutes the message changes to:
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-MOF: Exiting Boot Agent.
Operating System not found

If I can get the computer running again, I will follow up on an error message which I had ignored (OK - not a good idea!) because I couldn't make head or tail of the technical data it contained... or maybe find the piece of paper where I wrote it down...! Then maybe I could use this forum to attend to whatever issue may have caused the problem in the first place?
My computer is a secondhand one I bought when its lease expired at the school I was working in, so it is about 3 years old. If the battery is running low, it shouldn't matter, should it? I almost always use the computer plugged in to the wall.

[maneshgohil]

Have you tried putting the operating system disk in the CD rom and trying to repair the problem through the disk?

[flavallee]

Without having a "hands on" with that laptop, it's my guess at this point that the hard drive in it has failed.

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[wekas]

Originally Posted by maneshgohil

Have you tried putting the operating system disk in the CD rom and trying to repair the problem through the disk?

Thanks. I'd love to be able to try this, but unfortunately because I got the computer secondhand and it already had the operating system loaded on it, I don't have the disk.

[wekas]

Originally Posted by flavallee

Without having a "hands on" with that laptop, it's my guess at this point that the hard drive in it has failed.

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OK. Sounds terminal. Is there a remedy if this is the case, or is the computer a write-off?

[hrlow2]

Hard drives are pretty reasonably priced and shouldn't be too hard to replace.
You can always purchase a new XP OEM disk from eBay or try some of your local computer shops.
If you want to consider it as a write off, ship it to me COD. I'll take care of the "junk".

[wekas]

Thanks hrlow2 - I'd really like to get it going again, so it's great news that I could replace the hard drive or set up the operating system again. I really appreciate your advice. Thanks heaps.

[hrlow2]

Can't blame a guy for trying, can you?

[vicks]

I agree, it sounds like Hard drive failure. Before you do anything drastic you might try booting into safe mode. Tap the F8 key continously while computer is booting if the HD is not completely shot, you will see the safe mode open. If it does, use the arrow keys to move up to the "last Known Good Configuration" choice and click enter. Let the computer do it's thing,. If this works, click on computer (in XP my computer), right click on your c drive, select properties, click tools tab.click on error checking. Check both boxes that come up to scan;/repair the disk. It will tell you that it will run when you reboot the computer. Select Okay, reboot the computer.
This error checking can take some time to go thru the steps,
Good Luck
Vicks