Will Be Inactive for awhile

[JPG]

Anyone know the "magickey" that gets one to bios-human interface so as to define boot device search sequence on a Toshiba?

[JPG]

BTW recent win updates have my usb drives working again. Still no sd card reader.

[lahola1]

JPG, here are some things to try.


For Toshiba laptop, the BIOS key is commonly Del or F2. Step 4: Change the boot order. When you enter the BIOS setting, go to the Boot tab and select the bootable USB drive as the first boot device. The USB drive is commonly displayed as USB, USB HDD, or something else that can represent USB drive.

What is the boot key for Toshiba?
Press the power button and simultaneously keep pressing either (1) F2 or Fn+F2 keys or (2) F12 or Fn+F12 keys to get into the boot menu.

[Majones1]

If all else fails, if you have data on the SSD that you don’t want to lose, then don’t wipe and reload the OS on that drive. Get a new drive and reinstall the OS to the new drive, then you can connect to the old drive and copy your old data to the new drive.

All Dells have a restore partition that will reinstall the OS from that partition. But, if you got hit with malware, or the computer crashed when it was installing a Dell low-level update, then it can certainly destroy the ability to boot. If you can get to the restore options, it is likely you are accessing the Dell Restore partition, but if it fails to restore there is an additional problem on top of the OS corruption. Do you know if BitLocker was turned on? That is a drive encryption software built into Windows. If so, I have seen updates to the TPM firmware version cause problems. I mention this because one of your statements complains about security. There is a TPM chip on many newer Dells (and other brands) that integrates with the OS to increase security. I’m pretty sure BitLocker uses the TPM in its encryption of the drive. This may not be related to your problem, but is worth being aware of.

This week I had to resurrect a server running Windows Server 2019 that Blue Screened on every boot attempt. I could access the drive in command line mode using the Dell troubleshooting utility, and found that the file system and registry were badly corrupted. I could have probably performed an OS recovery, although for this I believe I would have needed a recovery DVD, which does not come with new servers unless you specifically order it with the new server, but the person who ordered and setup this server did not do that. Fortunately this client had a good image backup made 6 hours prior to the crash, so I was able to restore that to get the server back online.

The cause of the crash was a strange confluence of three events that assured the server would fail. First, a drive drive in the RAID5 set failed, which made the drive run very slow as the other drives rebuilt the data that resided on the failed drive. For those who don’t know what RAID5 is, it is a method of grouping 3 or more drives in a way that allows one drive in the set to fail and still remain functional. The way it does this is by putting enough data on the other disks to be able to recreate the data from the failed drive. But when a drive fails it takes a lot more processing time for the failed drive’s data to be recreated from the good drives and so the computer runs a lot slower. The second thing that happened was the server was doing a significant update, which should normally have need fine, but was taking a really long time because of failed drive having to work harder to recreate and save data that should have been on the failed drive. Third, the client’s five story building lost power for long enough that the UPS (a battery backup power device) ran out of power. Which would normally be OK since it would send a command to the server to power down normally, but because the server was running extremely slow because of the failed hard drive, and the update was installing, the UPS ran out of battery. Losing power in the middle of a Windows update is one of the worst things that can happen, and can kill a computer badly.

Anyway, there are lots of things that can destroy an OS, no matter if you use Windows, Mac, Linux, Unix, or whatever.

If then computer is four years old or more, you need to decide how much money and time you are willing to put into recovering it. I would not put much into it. Unless you bought a really powerful computer with lots of resources, it is probably not worth putting money and time into this computer when you could be putting it into a new one that is built to support the new OS and applications. OS’s and applications are all built for the current hardware and resource levels that come with new machines and so they slow down on older computers. For instance, four years ago I was recommending 8GB RAM for general business use desktops, but today I would not put anything out with less than 16GB. And current CPUs and GPUs are a lot more powerful. If you are putting money into a PC, it is usually more cost effective to put it into one that is newer than 4 years old.

Hope you are able to get through this quickly. Just keep in mind, all computers suck! (No matter what OS is used.). JMO

[dusty]

I tend to agree with your assessment. The "checking for Media presence" to me suggests that it isn't finding a bootable drive. If the boot sector of your SSD inadvertently got corrupted, that is likely what it would find.
I don't work with Windows, but from what little I know, you don't need a CD or DVD of Windows 10 or 11 to do a reinstall if you already were running one of them. You should be able to follow these instructions and get the software via the internet directly from Microsoft.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/win ... c3b507420d

I have learned some today. I can eliminate those error comments by connecting a LAN cable to the ethernet output on my Century Link Modem. I don't know why; I just know that I have now repeated that series of ePSA tests three times without error. All of the built in tests report no hardware malfunctions detected.

I'm at the point of decision. New Microsoft OS or new computer with Win10 installed. $$$$

Problem has been locating a source for W10 on CD. Digital download versions are readily available but how do I download to a computer the won't boot.

I have an iso file of the OS on flash drive. Actually two. One is the image of my computer done by Recovery and the other is a Macrium Reflect version. It really seems like either of those two should bail me out of this mess. I am missing something.

[reible]

If you have a recovery disk then you should be OK. Boot and hit F12 to get to bios recovery area.

Just to be sure, you have checked that the bios is set to boot off that hard drive right? If it looks to boot off a CD or memory stick, or even the network then it will not necessary find the hard disk and boot from it.

Ed

[rogersk]

I have an iso file of the OS on flash drive. Actually two. One is the image of my computer done by Recovery and the other is a Macrium Reflect version. It really seems like either of those two should bail me out of this mess. I am missing something.

You might find some help booting from the Macrium clone here:

https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/displ ... ing+a+disk

[edma194]

Anyone know the "magickey" that gets one to bios-human interface so as to define boot device search sequence on a Toshiba?

The F2 key should bring up the BIOS on Toshiba. Try hitting it rapidly starting right after power up.

[dusty]

Anyone know the "magickey" that gets one to bios-human interface so as to define boot device search sequence on a Toshiba?

The F2 key should bring up the BIOS on Toshiba. Try hitting it rapidly starting right after power up.

F2 as soon as logo screen appears bring the bios page up on my Dell XPS8930. The other useful shortcut is F12.

[dusty]

If you have a recovery disk then you should be OK. Boot and hit F12 to get to bios recovery area.

Just to be sure, you have checked that the bios is set to boot off that hard drive right? If it looks to boot off a CD or memory stick, or even the network then it will not necessary find the hard disk and boot from it.

Ed

Thanks for the input Ed. I made the decision last night, based on repeated tests using the Dell tools, that my problem is the mother board. I should have come to this conclusion days ago. The diagnostic indicators have been consistent but I was not reading them correctly. The power button led nights amber for about three seconds and go dark. The users guide tells me that I have a motherboard or ROM problem.

Got a board ordered. Chose to get a refurbished board. Before I spend what they are asking for a new motherboard I'll dump $1800 into new computer.