I tried my AVG rescue disk (did F12 and went to CD/DVD)
all I got was a message of:
“ISOLINUX 5.01 2013-01-28 ETCDiscolinux: Disk erro 01, AX-426B, drive FE”
I tried a Vista disc that came with another laptop(Dell) and tried the “last known good configuration” tab . when clicking on the “repair my computer” tab, the “system recover option” box was blank...so I clicked ‘next’ and chose the “startup repair” tab. that didn’t work.
should I have chose “system restore” or will I lose data with that?
Don’t do a system restore with a disk created on another computer.
Download a “live” linux (Puppy is a good one) and boot from that. Then copy all you valuable files to a USB drive or CD/DVD. Then do the system restore with the utility on your Toshiba HD. Then reinstall everything that wasn’t part of your original system. This isn’t the optimum, but it may be the only option left.
When you do get the laptop how you want it, back it up. :)
The System Restore option just re-writes system files. In your case, your boot record corrupted. The bootrec command will fix your issues. You might need to run the three commands in the list more than once.
So, for instance, boot into the CD and go to the command prompt. Once in there, type ‘cd sources’ to get to the proper directory. Type:
bootrec /FixMbr [hit enter]
bootrec /FixBoot [hit enter]
bootrec /RebuildBcd [hit enter]
Then reboot. If it doesn’t boot, go back into the repair CD and run it again. I’ve had to run those commands at least twice on many servers in my day. The first run will actually rebuild the boot sector. The second run fixes the boot manager, and off you go.
If this doesn’t work the first time, make sure you’ve run the ‘Startup Repair’ option first. Then go into the command prompt and run the commands. The startup repair will often fix the issue, but if it doesn’t, it will at least point the partition tables to the proper OS folder.