laptop suddenly does not run after msconfig adjustment and reboot

I have had the Toshiba turned off and unplugged for a whole 24 hours now. Thanks to some great help here on WindowsBBS, I was able to download a CD (which I hope to be bootable) of the Hitachi Drive Fitness Test diagnostic tool. Had a few minutes tonight so I just took the "crashed" laptop out to the dining room table and plugged it in. I was unable to get the CD drive to open while it was turned off, so I pushed the power button and quickly opened the CD drawer to put the CD in... and...

And the Toshiba seems to be working just fine. The screen lighted right up with the Windows XP logo on it in living color! It turned on just like normal, only no sound. I was so shocked to see something on that screen, I didn't even think to try the volume control. Everything looks fine on the screen; all the shortcuts are on the desktop. I opened My Documents, and everything looks completely normal. Even the screen saver marquee is back, just the way it was. I think it's all there! The only difference is - all of the start-up items I had disabled before I started writing these messages about this problem have "enabled themselves" - for lack of a more correct analysis or assessment on my part... Also, this is the first time I've powered up the Toshiba laptop that it was not connected to the HP C5180 All-in-One. As well, the machine started up perfectly - no "unhandled exception" or other dialog box cramping the start-up. This is almost as bizarre as the shut-down/black screen.

Now. Do I go ahead and run the diagnostics?

Is what I've gone through the last few days a rare occurrence...? Or is it somewhat "normal "? I'm just agog.

So. The hopefully-bootable CD is in the open CD drawer... I await any comments or advice with bated breath.

Regards,

Jeni

 

OK. Good thing I didn't get really furious and pitch it out the door, huh? Or try annointing it with a can of beer...

It's crazy. It seems to run now better than it ever has. Maybe it needed three days off...? I'll run the bootable CD. Thanks for the help.

Do miracles cost extra...?

This does give me the perfect opportunity to TRULY back up my Outlook. Is there any special instructions for doing that? Like I said before, I fully expected to find all the Outlook info on the Maxtor back up. It is not there.

Thanks again.

Jeni

 

It is Microsoft Outlook 2007, not the Express one. We upgraded from the 2003 suite to the 2007 suite over two years ago. I wondered about that connection myself, as all of the weird issues I've had with the Toshiba seem to have been somehow related to the printer or one of its functions, like "PhotoGallery" or "PictureViewer" - I used to get dialog boxes with references to those things, and attempts to install them, then the "unhandled exception" error message that sent me to WindowsBBS about 2-3 weeks ago.

Oddly, the small icons at the bottom right on the screen show that the printer is there, hooked up and working fine. Usually, when the printer is not hooked up to the computer, the icon changes to show the printer with a red slash or other warning notice indicating that the printer isn't available... This icon shows that the printer is AOK. Green-light.

Thank you again for your response and your help.

Jeni

 

Thanks much. This should keep me busy for a while.

The printer is working fine with the Acer; I downloaded and installed HP's printer drivers for Windows Vista directly from HP's web site. That site/manufacturer is more than accommodating... maybe they know how much ink we have bought...? My husband and I are now wondering if perhaps the CD version of the printer's software is faulty.

Perhaps this would be a good idea to do: Uninstall the printer in the Toshiba. Then go to HP's web site and download/install the drivers for Windows XP as we did for the Acer's Vista. ??? This seems like a sound idea to us; however, we are obviously less than experts with this sort of thing. Any comments? Or better ideas?

Thank you again for being there. Greatly appreciate the time and effort this takes.

Kindest regards,

Jeni

 

OK, the HP C5180 is successfully uninstalled, with restart after. HP gives several options for uninstalling. I ended up having to use the CD to do it; going to "All Programs" to find the HP items, then clicking Uninstall, did not do the trick. In fact, upon this action it behaved as though I had done nothing at all. So perhaps the CD is not faulty after all. Oh, one thing: about halfway through the uninstall procedure, a dialog box appeared that said there was a short cut missing and gave me choices to Fix It, Delete It, or Cancel. I picked "Fix It" and there were no more problems or dialog boxes.

I have not reinstalled the printer. We are thinking it might be wise to wait a week or more, until after we do the hard drive diagnostics, make the Manual System Restore Point (about which I may be asking in the near future) and also see exactly how we plan to use these two machines as we move forward. It is good to have options! The Maxtor external hard drive is completely up-to-date now that I have put (a horrifying) 2.5 GB of Outlook files on it.

The Outlook .pst file backup went very well - I cannot thank you and this site enough for the help. Further down the Outlook 2007 backup, however, I stalled out when a search as instructed to back up Personal Address Books (for *.pab files) resulted in "0 files found ". Reading through the .pst file backup information, I found it does say that some of the address books are stored within that .pst group. So, it's possible that I have never created or used any .pab files. (I think.)

Next, we do the hard drive fitness test. I tried the CD and was unable to get the test run. Now that this computer is working, and the printer is uninstalled and unhooked from the machine, perhaps the best way to run the DFT is directly from the Hitachi web site.

Talk about being hurled out of my comfort zone here! ) Thank you again for making the various bounces and other landings as injury-free as possible. Appreciate the good work!

Regards,

Jeni

 

Tried the Drive Fitness Test CD and it doesn't work. There are four file folders on the CD: ASPI, DFT, DATA, and DOS. I opened each one and made a list of the files inside. Perhaps it is time for me to post DFT questions to a new thread? Please let me know. Thanks again.

Jeni