I found Mrs TZ has several different recovery disks for her Dell laptop with Windows 7.
Will this work on my Toshiba or only on the Dell ?
Get a CD to write, and on Mrs. TZ's Windows 7 Laptop goto:
START.
In the search area type 'backup'.
Choose: 'Backup and Restore' when the search panel propagates.
In the side bar of the resulting window, poke 'Create System Repair Disc'.
Insert RW disc and follow instructions to create.
In the stricken laptop, access Bios, set boot priority to CDRom/DVDRom.
Insert created boot disc into drive and boot.
See here.
The two salient tools are 'Startup Repair' and 'System Restore'. If they can't fix it, you really need to stop attempts and get it to a tech for data recovery and repair.