XP Recovery Disk Keeps Rebooting

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spk1973

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Hello all,
I have a Toshiba Satellite 450 (I think) running Windows XP. It recently showed a blank screen with the words "disk read error Press ctrl + alt + del to restart". When I did this, it restarted to the same page. I could not find a solution to this problem and (seeing how I don't have a lot of important/sensitive information on this laptop) I decided to reboot from the recovery disk and re-format the whole hard drive. I inserted the recovery disk and pressed f12 at startup to ensure that it would boot from the disk.
It now says "Welcome to the Toshiba Recovery Utility. This process will restore the original default system install on your hard drive. Note that the current contents of your hard drive will be deleted etc. Select f1 for OK, or f2 cancel."
I press f1 and the next page has a huge WARNING and text that again warns me that I'm about to erase everything off my hard drive. It says "To continue press (C). To abort press (A)...[C,A]?"
I press C, and it says "please wait" and reboots to the "Welcome to the Toshiba Recovery Utility" page again, and the process starts all over.
I cannot get past this point to begin re-installing the OS on the hard drive. Any help very much appreciated.
Regards,
-Shawn
 
Can you remember if your drive was partitioned in two

1) Local HardDrive
2) Recovery Drive

Or is the entire recovery process on the disk?
 
Try to remeber when you would click on My computer did you have 2 drives plus the cdrom or only one drive?
 
Well, in that case it should not reboot back in the utility.

Are you pressing F8 again after pressing C.
 
Thats odd your saying there was a windows 98 startup screen when you would press F8?

Was this machine originally on win98?
 
I don't know, I don't think so but this is a very used laptop.
I am going to pull it out so I can tell you exactly what it says. Be back directly.
 
Microsoft Windows 98 Startup Menu

1. Normal
2. Logged (\BOOTLOG.TXT)
3. Safe Mode
4. Step-by-Step Confirmation
5. Command Prompt Only
6. Safe Mode Command Prompt Only

Enter a Choice:
 
Its seems that your drive has lost its partition...... and its only showing the backup partition which is probable a win98 startup for the recovery tool. (Assumption)

Try safe mode and tells me what happenes..
 
Windows is bypassing your startup files..........

Microsoft(R) Windows 98
(C) Copyright Microsoft Corp 1981-1999.

A:\>_
 
We are going to have to start from the top:

When your system starts enter the setup menu. The setup menu can be entered either by hiting the setup key, F2, OR F12 it depends on laptops.

I want you to make sure that the bios is in fact detecting your hardrive.
 
PhoenixBIOS Setup Utility
Main Advanced Security Boot Exit

System Time: [13:23:00]
System Date: [01/12/2010]

Primary Master [HTS541080G9AT00]
Secondary Master [MATSHITADVD-RAM UJ-841S]

Video Display Devices: [Auto]
TV Type: [NTSC(US)]
LCD Display Stretch: [Enabled]

System Memory: 640KB
Extended Memory: 456704KB

System BIOS Version 1.50
 
Forgive my ignorance when it comes to things like this, but how do I download and run the application on the pc when I cannot seem to run windows?
Is there a way to run it without entering a windows startup screen?
 
Using a working PC download the CD Image fie which is a ISO.

Using a burning software such as nero burn the image of the ISO to a CD. Then insert the disc into the broken PC and boot fo the disc.

Do not put the ISO as a data on the CD you need to burn as a image.
 
I downloaded the file, but it is an .exe file, not .iso.
I put the file onto a cd and inserted it into the drive, and booted from the CD drive, and I'm getting a similar error:

Intel UNDI, PXE-2.0 (build 082)

For Realtek RTL8139(x)/8130/810X PCI Fast Ethernet Controller v2.13 (020326)
PXE-E61: Media Test Failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting PXE ROM.

A disk read error occurred
Press ctrl+alt+del to restart
_

FWIW I am typing this on a Mac PowerBook g4. I do not have access to another PC at this time. However, the linked download file is indeed a .exe file.

Thanks.

EDIT: I located the .iso file and burned it to cd, and booted the pc from that. The first time, I got the same message as above, only instead of the "disk read error" info I got "Operating System not found". All I could do was press any key, which I did, and the same screen reloaded, but instead reverted to "disk read error".
 
you did not download the correct file. refer to the bold lines.

Drive Fitness Test

Version 4.16

The Drive Fitness Test (DFT) quickly and reliably tests SCSI, IDE and SATA drives. The DFT analyze function performs read tests without overwriting customer data. (Note: other DFT restoration utilities may overwrite data.)

Downloads
To run the DFT, you must download the appropriate creator or image and create a self-booting media.

You may create the media under Windows (using the Windows OS version) or Linux (using the binary image), but you must start your system with the DOS-bootable diskette to run DFT.

Drive Fitness Test User's Guide (426 K)
Guide to using DFT
Diskette creator for Windows OS (2,130 K)
Creates self-booting media to run DFT | Read Me | Having trouble creating the bootable diskette?
Binary diskette image for non-Windows OS (1,440 K)
Creates self-booting media to run DFT | Read Me
CD image (2,720 K)
Creates bootable CD for Linux, Windows and other operating systems ( requires CD-RW drive and software).
 
In the above post I edited it to show that I found the correct disk image file and downloaded it, burned it to a cd and booted the PC from it. I still get the following screen:

Intel UNDI, PXE-2.0 (build 082)

For Realtek RTL8139(x)/8130/810X PCI Fast Ethernet Controller v2.13 (020326)
PXE-E61: Media Test Failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting PXE ROM.

A disk read error occurred
Press ctrl+alt+del to restart
_

I have tried changing the boot option in the BIOS settings (f2 on this particular laptop) and in the boot menu settings (f12). Still receiving same error message.
 
I burned the CD on a mac; it is NOT itunes, but Finder (Windows Explorer).
The image file shows correctly on the CD when viewed on the mac, as a .iso file.
I guess I can try tracking down another PC to download and burn the file onto a disk, but this does not seem to be the problem, in my opinion.
 
I just got my hands on a working pc and downloaded the file. I burned it to a CD using Roxio CD Creator. It resides on the CD as an image file. I put it into the broken PC and booted from it. Still getting "disk read error occurred Press ctrl+alt+del to restart" message.
 
The reason I am confused is the following: "disk read error" implicated cannot read hard drive. we know this. When you request your PC to start from the CD the purpose is to avoid reading the disk.

Below is the link on how to burn a .ISO on a cd using nero or roxio. If you have followed the steps then you are not starting from the CD. If in fact you have a good copy of the CD and you are starting from the CD and still receiving this error, then you have a much more serious problem.

http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/burning_iso.html

Or you might have a floppy in the drive! which I doubt
 
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