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Toshiba Portege optical drive to hard drive issues

4K views 15 replies 2 participants last post by  Stancestans 
#1 ·
Hello,

A couple of issues with a portege r830 running Windows 7. It's actually kind of a convuluted mess.

Backstory: Bought the machine a year ago and was running Windows 8.1 then. Decided to replace the optical drive with a hard drive. Had absolutely no problems in the process other than the fact that Windows 8 is unusable trash. Then, a couple of months ago, something goes wrong and the machine can no longer read the primary hard drive. Toshiba replaced the motherboard, re-imaged the drive and sent the machine back with Windows 7. But now there's two problems:

1. Turning the machine on from a fully powered down state does the following in sequence:
the keyboard lighting up but the screen staying dark, followed by a hard clicking sound as the laptop automatically turns itself off, then turns back on and starts normally

2. A bizarre mess when trying to replace the optical drive a hard drive. For some reason, when the optical drive is replaced with a hard drive, that second drive becomes the primary drive for boot purposes, instead of the one in the actual HDD slot. I've tried changing the boot order to no avail. This didn't happen when I previously made the change.

And originally, the machine read both drives correctly even if reversed (both had windows 7 operating systems installed). But now, all I'm getting is blue screens of death. After the starting issue, it goes to the windows screen, mouse pointer shows up, then BSOD.

The machine worked normally when the optical drive was kept in but I really would prefer a second hard drive. I'm actually at a loss at what to do here, if there is actually anything that can be done. Is it a windows 7 issue that
upgrading to windows 10 will solve or send the machine back to toshiba and try my luck again (there customer support is generally awful and I'd like to avoid them if I can). Or is it something else?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
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#2 ·
Hi :wavey: and :welcome: to TSF! :smile: :thumb:

Disable automatic restart on system failure via the F8 key. This will at least leave the BSOD screen on display until you manually turn it off, thus we can gather more info about the crash and what's causing it. Press the F8 key repeatedly (twice every second) as soon as the Toshiba logo appears when you turn it on, until you see the advanced startup menu with several options such as Safe mode. One of the options is to disable automatic restart on system failure. Select it and press Enter. When it BSOD, take a clearly focused photo and post it here, although it may not be of much value if my speculation in the next paragraph is true (read on).

What's on the second disk, the one in the ODD bay? Does it still have an installation of Windows 7 from before the motherboard replacement? If it does, and the PC is trying to boot from it, then it will BSOD because of the motherboard replacement/changed hardware profile. New motherboard is technically a new computer. A Windows installation from the old motherboard will not work with the new motherboard, even if they are the exact same make and model, there are subtle differences that change the hardware profile completely.

The second disk could be faulty, hence the loud click. If, as you say, the hdd in the ODD bay is given higher priority and this cannot be changed in BIOS (I find that extremely hard to believe), then it means the system is booting from the second hdd and fails for the same reason stated in the previous paragraph above. You may not be saving the changes in BIOS after setting the first hdd as the top priority (top of the list) disk.

It's also possible that the ODD bay is treated just as an upgrade bay, regardless of what is actually installed in it. Whether an optical drive is present or not, it probably is listed as internal ODD in the boot order screen. In most systems the ODD is often the first boot device by default. This may also be the case in your system. If the ODD bay is the first boot device and the HDD bay comes after, then it may not matter if it's an ODD or HDD in that bay. In other words, select the HDD bay as the first boot device and press F10 to save changes and exit. You should also wipe the old Windows Seven installation in the second HDD as it will not work with the new motherboard.
 
#3 ·
Thanks for the reply!

Both hard drives had fresh copies of windows 7 installed after the new motherboard was put in. I've tried a third hard drive in the optical drive, this one without any operating system but just some files, (it was the one in the ODD bay with the old motherboard) but it just causes a disk read error.

I've actually tried switching the hard drives in the HDD slot and the optical bay, but the one in the optical bay still gets priority.

Here's a picture of the BSOD:


And here's a picture of the boot order having made no changes:
 
#4 ·
Let's do some tests and see what works and what doesn't, one at a time, before we can combine them all and have them working together; hopefully.

Turn off the laptop, unplug AC adapter and remove the battery. Press and hold the power button for at least ten seconds as if to turn it on. Remove ALL hard drives. Insert the battery and plug in power. Turn it on and enter BIOS then reset to default/load factory default settings. Exit BIOS saving changes.

When the system restarts it will fail to boot because of no system disk/OS found. Turn it off, unplug AC adapter and remove battery (always do this before installing internal components). Install the first (primary) hard disk in the ODD bay. Insert battery, connect power and turn it on. Enter BIOS, check if the hard disk is detected, don't make any other changes, exit bios and see if the system boots from the disk without BSOD.
 
#5 · (Edited)
I put in a new hard drive, formatted but no operating system into the ODD while the HDD slot has the primary one. The BSOD is gone, but now all I get is this:

The bios does reads both disks. When turning it on, the machine starts up, shuts down, then restarts itself.

When the ODD bay was empty, it'd started normally though. Could it be something with the ODD connection?

With regards to the BSOD, I think that second mentioned earlier was just faulty. I tried starting with only it in the HDD slot and the ODD empty, but still BSOD. The other drive with the operating system installing on started perfectly fine on it's own.
 
#7 ·
Oh sorry!

Following the steps laid out in your previous post, with the primary hard drive in the ODD bay and nothing in the HDD slot, the following happens:

1. Pressing the power button results in a fake start; the keyboard lights flash, a clicking/hard drive shutting off sound, then the machine restarts by itself normally
2. Checking the bios, it shows the toshiba hard drive under ODD
3. After exiting without saving changes, another fake start
4. It doesn't boot; it just shows the exact same 'media test failure, check cable' error as pictured in post #5.
 
#8 · (Edited)
Since the primary HDD is detected in BIOS while installed in the ODD bay, we can conclude that the connection is working just fine. Change the boot order and put the ODD as first boot device. Let's see if it will boot from the primary HDD inside the ODD bay. If there's a fastboot/quickboot option in BIOS, disable it. Also try to manually select the ODD from the boot device menu. I'm not sure which key brings up the boot device menu (try F12). See if it boots from the ODD (with primary hdd inside).
 
#11 ·
Tried the diagnostic menu, but it didn't work. To be clear, it came up but selecting 'start HDD/SSD test' did nothing.

Here's what the bios screen shows:


And the boot menu:


I can try a live Linux flash disk/Ubuntu on a bootable flash disk but it'll take a while as I'll figure out how to do it.
 
#12 · (Edited)
The HDD is detected alright. It's a Seagate Mobile HDD 2TB drive, correct? That is the boot menu alright, but I find it strange that it does not list the ODD/HDD as a boot device under the boot menu. Perhaps your laptop relies solely on the boot order settings and only uses the boot menu for network boot, hence the reason it won't list anything else other than the LAN adapter. We can test this as follows:

Install the primary disk back in the HDD bay and install the ODD in its bay (original setup). Load the boot menu and see if the HDD and ODD are listed together with the LAN adapter. If the LAN adapter is still the only one listed, then it's confirmed that other boot devices are only selectable via the boot order.

To create a Linux bootable flash disk, use Rufus with an iso image of Kubuntu which you can download from Download Kubuntu | Kubuntu. You need a flash disk of at least 4GB. Rufus will partition and format the flash disk during the process, so any data on the flash disk will be lost.
 
#13 ·
Yeah, it's a Seagate Mobile HDD 2TB drive.

With the original set up (primary disk back in the HDD bay and the optical drive in its bay), the boot menu shows:


Does this suggest the problem is with the second HD caddy? Haven't had a chance to pick up a flash drive, but I'll try to get it tomorrow if it's necessary.

Even with the original setup, I still get the false start and then BSOD though.
 
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