Please help, Toshiba laptop giving me hell

[kobik]

I've had this Toshiba laptop for years and about a month ago it gave out on me. I kept getting a "Enter built-in hdd password" error and I couldn't get it to boot up. I kept it aside and borrowed my sisters laptop to use in the meanwhile. 2 days ago I needed files from the laptop so I booted up trying to retrieve the files and it actually worked. In the process of going thru it, windows update happened and the computer had to restart and I went back to the same problem. I then updated the bios version and got rid of the "built in hdd password" problem but it still won't boot. When it starts up it says "Insert system drive in drive, press any key when done". The CD works but I don't think the hdd is reading right. Here is the system info...
Boot Priority=CD-LAN-HDD-FDD
HDD Priority=Built in HDD-2nd HDD-PC Card
Network Boot Protocol= PXE
Built in HDD=No Drive (this worries me)
Select Bay=Secondary IDE (170H/IRQ15)
Device Config=Setup by OS
PCI Bus=IRQ10, IRQ11

Please any help or suggestions will be greatly appreciated, I just want to retrieve my files from the laptop.

 

[fastco]

Sounds like the hard drive is either failing or corrupt. Download BartPE and create a boot cd on another computer then boot off of the new cd on your laptop. You can run a few tests like chdsk /r and fixmbr and it might let you access you hard drive to recover data.


http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

 

[kobik]

I downloaded it but it can't seem to access the hdd either. I guess what I'll do is just get an enclosure and extract the files I need. It sucks but I can't figure out any other way to do it.