Crash Dump/Recovery disk/etc.

[Pghpooh]

Daughter gave me her Toshiba laptop to "fix". She said it got a virus in it over a year ago and since then she never used it.
I charged the battery and powered it up. The laptop started up and then a error code of F3-F100-0010 came up on the screen. I googled the error code and most answers say it is a virus causing this. There is no antivirus installed on the laptop. (she let the Norton expire)
I tried several things to get rid of any viruses including the Windows malware software. No scans found any virus, etc.
After a while, the laptop crashed and a screen said a crash dump was in progress. The dump completed and the laptop rebooted.
I did a memory check and the memory is ok. I did a hard drive check using the windows tools and that was ok. I did a system restore going back over a year and they went ok. Then,, another crash dump. I wanted to do a recovery taking it back to factory settings but every time I tried to do that,,, crash dump! There was a disk that someone made with the word recovery on it. I tried that and the laptop didn't recognize it.
I shut things down for a day or so.
Now,,, after I power the laptop up,,, reboots on a random basis.
I went into the Toshiba troubleshooting site and after following all the steps the site says the hard drive is bad. I removed the drive and connected it to a sata to usb adaptor and was able to see all the files on the drive. I reinstalled the drive and the laptop started up and just before the windows started to load the screen flickered and went to a screen saying there is a problem with the startup and it needs to be repaired. I let the machine run and it couldn't repair the startup.

My thoughts are a bad drive but hesitate to replace it because with a external connection I can see the files on the drive.

I did notice the drive seemed to have some vibration every so often.

Could it be a a bad drive?????

And,, since there were NO recovery disks I can buy one from Toshiba for $29.95. Will that recovery disk have the drivers needed for the laptop???? (you have to give the site the Ser and part # to come up with the recovery drive.

Any suggestions???
Thanks for reading this novel!!!

 

[Smoove910]

Boot into Safe Mode by tapping on F6 during startup

Use the 'msconfig' utility and make sure nothing out of the ordinary is booting up with Windows (startup tab). If you don't know what it is, disable it.

Next, download/install a copy of Malwarebytes and run it to see what it comes up with.

 

[Pghpooh]

Powered up the laptop this morning and,,,, KAPUT!!!
This is what is happening.
Laptop starts.
Completes POST
Screen shows "Starting Windows" for about 2 to 3 seconds.
Real fast blue screen
Then screen shows starting windows again for a second then screen shows "Windows has failed to start" and it takes a minute or so then the "Startup Repair" screen shows and the laptop tries to repair the startup.

Is the drive dead?

I was able to get into the bios and reset all setting to factory settings.

 

[Ketchup]

Before assuming a dead drive, pull off any important data and do a factory reset on the laptop. The only other thing I can think is pulling back the minidump files and having a look, but at this point I dob't know that it would help anything.

Did the Toshiba site indicate exactly why it told you it was the hard drive? I am wondering if it did a S.M.A.R.T. test.

 

[Pghpooh]

Laptop is still "cycling' as I mention before. It powers up,,, then shows the "Toshiba" screen where I can choose f2, f12, if I want to enter the bios, etc. After that quick screen the Starting Windows screen shows for a few seconds then a quick blue screen flash and the next screen is the repair start up screen.
I tried to get into the safe mode and it still fails when I try to enter the safe mode.

As for Toshiba saying I needed to replace the HD,,,,,,, Toshiba has a trouble shooting site. It is a series of questions in a sequence like a logic chart. For instance it would ask "Does the laptop power up,,, Yes...... Does the laptop show this screen, Yes,,,, does the laptop do this function,,, NO,,,,, and so on. It takes about 10 minutes to work your way thru the chart and the final result is that the HD needs replaced.
Replacing the HD is easy.
My main concern is I am going to order the recovery disk for $30. Will the recovery disk have all the drivers needed to get the laptop up and running?
When ordering the recovery disk, the site asks for model #, ser. # and part #. Thus I am assuming the recovery disk will, might have the drivers, etc. of the laptop.
Any suggestions?

 

[Ketchup]

The recovery disks will have everything the laptop came with: Drivers, apps, bloatware, everything.

As for the test questions, I don't know, could be a bad hard drive. Could just be a corrupted driver or damage from a rootkit/virus.