How long does a recovery take?

[NotTechSavvy]

Hello, I'm in the process of "wiping" the hard drive, per instructions from my uncle... and it's been 17 hours so far and it still goes "loading RAMDISK Image" and then starts the Toshiba screen and then starts the whole process over again. I'm just curious if this is normal and if anyone knows how long it should really take...

Thanks!

[dai]

not normal
did you follow the instuctions from your manual
if it is a restore disk you don't normally format the h/d,the restore disk does what is nessasary

[NotTechSavvy]

I used the Toshiba Recovery and Applications/Drivers Media. I had my computer on and inserted the disc. It brought up a screen asking me to selectively install or to completely reformat the HD. I chose to completely reformat as that is what I was told to do by my uncle. I just read the back of the CD and it said I should've put the disc in with my computer shut off, and power up the computer while holding down the "C" key.

So, seeing as I didn't do that, what do I do now?? It says that "once you have begun the process, do not attempt to stop it. You may seriously damage your system. "

[dai]

not been in that position,if it were mine i would start again and do as it instructs
boot from the cd holding down the C key and i would expect it to format and reinstall from instructions contained on the cd

[NotTechSavvy]

i just contacted Toshiba support and told them that it's been on a loop for 18 hours... she gave me the name of a repair company locally and I have to take it there to have them look at it. She believes the hard drive may have been infected and need to be replaced. thankfully, it's still under warranty! Thanks for your assistance though, as always you guys know what you're doing!!

[dai]

let us know how you get on

[NotTechSavvy]

Ok, so I was able to take it to the repair people, apparently they had to delete some partitions to get the recovery to work, but it finally did... Problem is now, that I can't connect to my wireless connection (DSL) at home. I had no problem connecting to an unsecured network at my mothers business, but when I came home - nothing! I have a secured ACTIONTEC (wireless DSL modem) network, entered the WPA password and it would only connect with a "limited or no connectivity", so basically nothing. I had it set to find the IP address automatically and it kept coming up that I had an invalid IP address and when I clicked "repair" it would only attempt to "renew" the IP address and subsequently fail doing that. When I manually entered the IP address/SubNet Mask/DNS etc from the host computer, I was able to connect with a strong signal, but couldn't browse the web. I'm on the host computer right now with no problems, could someone please help me!? THANK YOU!!!

[fredjones32]

Thank you for posting your experience. I have been trying to restore a Toshiba Satellite A105, which was in the same loop you described. I stopped the loop, started from a different Win XP Pro disc, deleted all partitions, and the restore process started working properly.

It looked like there was a service partition (241MB), and the system couldn't boot to it properly.

Thank you so much for posting your experience. I have been searching Google for over an hour trying to sort this out. You have saved my butt.