Hey, everybody. I'm new to these forums so I'm sorry if I do anything wrong, and sorry for the long post.

I own a three-month-old Toshiba Satellite S50D-A that came with Windows 8 installed and ran perfectly. I was eventually asked to upgrade to Windows 8.1, and assuming it was a minor update, I immediately accepted.

Unfortunately, ever since "upgrading" to Windows 8.1, my computer has suffered some severe performance issues. Browsing the internet has become slower, games run poorly, and worst of all, my computer will randomly freeze constantly. I am still able to move the mouse around but clicking does nothing or sometimes has a very delayed response. The computer usually resumes after a few minutes, but sometimes it suddenly resets on its own. This has become increasingly frustrating, especially when I am in class (I am a university student) and trying to take notes when the computer freezes and sometimes resets, losing my notes.

Researching on the internet has revealed that this is not an uncommon problem with Windows 8.1, but the solutions presented online have failed to solve my problems. I've upgraded every driver on my computer which I thought was the issue but the problem has persisted.

A couple of days ago, I left my computer for a few minutes and returned to find it had shut down and refused to turn back on. I was eventually able to restart the computer after contacting Toshiba and learning there was a reset hole I could poke a pin into, but that episode convinced me to give up on fixing the issue and to simply return my computer to factory defaults.

If anybody has any solutions to the freeezing issue and other problems with Windows 8.1, that would be preferable, but otherwise, this brings me to my new problem. I stumbled upon Windows Refresh, the ability to return to default system settings without losing my files. This sounded perfect as I am willing to reinstall all of my programs if it means having a properly functioning computer again. However, upon attempting the Refresh, I was presented with a blue screen that read:

RECOVERY

The Application or operating system couldn't be loaded because a required file is missing or contains errors.

File: \windows\system32\winload.efi

Error code: 0x0000001

It proceeds to tell me that I can use recovery tools to repair my computer, which brings me to my next trouble... I did not create recovery media when I still had Windows 8. I plan to go out and buy a 16gb usb stick tomorrow and create one but I'm not sure if the Windows 8.1 recovery media will work or not.

Long story short, my computer has suffered constant freezing since updating to Windows 8.1, and my attempts to use the Refresh feature have failed due to error code 0x0000001. If anybody has a solution to any of these problems, your help would be extremely appreciated. As a full-time student, these technology troubles have become extremely infuriating.

Thank you!

I hate to bump my own post, but does anybody have any ideas?

Hey,

Not sure this is 'the' solution your looking for, I do this for work with similar problems but you may be limited to the resources you have.  Also working on laptops is brutally limited. Incidentally I solved a similar freezing issue (that started when when I changed a machine from 8 to 8.1) by changing the Hard Drive option from AHCI to IDE (an option not found on most laptops sadly).

First of all, commit to the idea that any future 'repair' options on that drive will most likely wipe it clean of everything.  So grab a small Phillips head and get it out.

Grab a fresh hard drive (might set you back about $100) and throw it in your laptop.

If you remember the exact version of Windows 8 you had (eg, x86 Home or x64 Professional) and have access to a installation disc, install it on the new drive.  If not, this might be where you get stuck but it should be on your product key sticker.

Enter the product key matching your laptop (underneath it usually).

When the installation has completed, don't connect or the WiFi or internet yet, use the 'phone activation' method.

Grab a desktop, throw your old drive in (I usually boot the desktop, put it to sleep, connect the drive then wake).

or

If you don't have a desktop, go out and purchase a 2.5" external drive chassis and connect it straight to your laptop.

You should be able to pull any saved files from your drive (just throw the 'C:\Users\<Your Name>' folder onto a USB).  This won't get your laptop repaired, but at least you will have something to use and now you can wait for a refresh disc sent from Toshiba or continue 'repair' swapping the first drive in.

Good luck

Please provide us with your Event Viewer administrative logs by following these steps:


Click Start Menu
Type eventvwr into Search programs and files (do not hit enter)
Right click eventvwr.exe and click Run as administrator
Expand Custom Views
Click Administrative Events
Right click Administrative Events
Save all Events in Custom View As...
Save them in a folder where you will remember which folder and save as Errors.evtx
Go to where you saved Errors.evtx
Right click Errors.evtx -> send to -> compressed (zipped) folder
Upload the .zip file to skydrive or a file sharing service and put a link to it in your next post * If you have updated to win 8.1 and you get the error message "the system cannot find the file specified" it is a known problem.  The work around is to edit the registry.  If you are not comfortable doing this DONT.  If you are, backup the key before you do Press Win+"R" and input regedit
Navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WINEVT\Channels. Delete "Microsoft-Windows-DxpTaskRingtone/Analytic"

Thanks for the replies. I did in fact receive the "the system cannot find the file specified" error message, and I'm not sure what editing the registry is, so I probably shouldn't.

I've more or less given up on solving the freezing issue and simply want to refresh my computer, but I believe I know what my problem is. It seems that the partition on my harddrive that contains my Windows 8 Recovery Data is corrupted and has a missing or damaged winload.efi file, hence the error whenever I try to refresh my computer. Considering the computer boots fine normally and only gives me the error when I try to refresh it, this would seem to make sense.

I went out and bought a 16gb usb stick and used the Windows "Create a Recovery Drive" feature to create a recovery drive and copy my Windows 8 Recovery Data, then tried to boot into the usb drive to reinstall Windows, but I received the same blue screen error message saying I have a missing or damaged "winload.efi", error 0xc0000001. This again suggests that the recovery partition on my computer that was copied onto the USB drive is corrupt.

Is there any way to repair my Windows 8 Recovery Partition? I contacted Toshiba and they said they could send me a recovery disc but for $50 which I would rather not have to do considering this is a pretty new computer and the recovery partition is corrupt at seemingly no fault of my own.

Thank you!

Play the 'The laptop had corrupt files when I bought it' card with Toshiba.   If they won't send out a technician for free or offer a way to have it repaired, just keep calling them until they give in.  Maybe you can get the disc for free, but I suspect the drive itself is faulty (hence why I recommended you get a new one and start from scratch).

It's not fair you have to part with $50 for a issue Toshiba cannot resolve 3 months out of purchase.  I even had a guy from Dell come and visit me at my work for free when I had a drive problem (he replaced it in front of me) and that was 11 months after purchase.

Once again, Good Luck.

I'll be sure to give Toshiba some pestering calls until they send me a recovery disk for free, and should that fail, pester them some more for some sort of support. A three month old computer should not be giving me this many problems.

If anybody has ideas as to how I could repair my recovery partition, that would be very helpful, but otherwise, thank you for the replies.