Morning guys, I'm working on a Toshiba Satellite laptop with a boot issue. When booting, the laptop shows loading windows files, then starting windows, before stalling at a black screen with the mouse pointer. HDD activity goes on for quite a while then stops. No response form Ctrl,Alt,Del or Ctrl Esc. It won't boot from DVD either, gives the prompt to boot from dvd, but when key pressed, it goes though the routine above. Can't access safe mode unless I try to get it to boot from dvd first, but then safe mode comes up with the same issue, black screen with mouse pointer in all three safe mode options. Obviously can't do boot logging, as I cant then access the HDD to retrieve the log file. However, when I access the F8 advanced boot options screen, it says that they are advanced options for windows setup rather than windows itself, so it seems to be trying to re-install windows (Windows 7). The owner of the latop thinks one of the kids has been playing with it. Any ideas on how I can force it to boot from the DVD so I can access repair options. (I've checked the DV, and it works on other machines). Cheers in advance, Tony

You can normally go into safe mode without the medium by pressing f8 repeatedly just after "post" (power-on-self-test, the screens before windows starts to load) If the medium is fine, the most common cause for not booting from dvd is the bios configuration: make sure the dvd drive is listed before the harddrives. The second most common cause is failing dvd drive. You could try to swap the drive or even use a usb dvd-drive. Alternatively you could create a bootbal windows 7 USB stick. Also check http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/What-to-do-if-Windows-wont-start-correctly for more hints on how to troubelshoot Windows 7 not booting.MCP/MCSA/MCTS/MCITP

Thanks for the reply. For some reason, it won't accept the F8 unless I've got the DVD in, not sure why. I've connected a USB dvd drive, and it won't boot from that either. As I said, it displays the 'Loading Windows Files' page, then displays the starting windows page, with the pulsing flag, even after pressing a key to boot form disk. It looks like it's reading from the disk, as the activity light shows it reading, but just doesn't boot from it. I always end up at the black screen with mouse pointer. It's as if it recognises the disk, reads from the disk, but then just reverts back to the HDD. The advanced boot options show it as still being in Setup, rather than actually being a loaded operating system.

Hi WilsonTony, Enter into the BIOS check if it's configured to boot from DVD. If still fail, try reset to the factory settings. Also contact Toshiba support for hardware check. Regards, MiyaThis posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. | Please remember to click "Mark as Answer" on the post that helps you, and to click "Unmark as Answer" if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.