Sorry, about "hijacking" prior thread - didn't realize that was a no-no.
Anyway i have 3yr old Toshiba Satellite: M115-S3154 w/ Windows XP Media Ctr Ed 2005

Yesterday upon start up, I immediately rec'd message stating:

- "windows did not start successfully - recent hardware or software changes might have caused this"

- it gave options to restart in the 3 different Safe Modes, last known configuration and start normally - none of these worked. I've tried numerous times yesterday and today with absolutely no luck.

When I shut laptop down 2nites ago, it seemed like it shut down extremely fast?! Today I realized that battery yellow light was on and thought maybe it wasn't charged enough. Charged for over 2hrs, have a blue light, but still had same experience as above.

- I removed and replaced battery - no luck
- I removed and replaced HDD - no luck

I pressed F8 immediately after start - to enter the Windows Advanced Options Menu for this laptop - and i have many options - but all no help:
= the 3 different Safe modes - tried all these, no help
= Enable Boot Logging - tried this, no help
= Enable VGA Mode
= Last Known Good Configuration... - tried this, no help
= Directory Services Restore Mode (Windows domain controllers only) - tried this, no help
= Debugging Mode - tried this, no help
= Disable automatic restart on system failure
= Start Windows Normally - tried this, no help
= Reboot - tried this, no help
= Return to OS Choices Menu

I searched the Microsoft Knowledge Base article "Advanced troubleshooting for general startup problems in Windows XP" - but no help.

I also tried MS article 310353 - How to configure WinXP to start in a "clean boot", but under Method 1, the downloadable guided help would not run on this computer i'm using to figure out the Toshiba problem. Method 2 of this guide requires you to be able to open windows - pretty dumb since I can't get windows to run in first place! So I'm still stuck.

I do have the original Toshiba Recovery and Applications CD - I have many files and pics that I do not want to lose. I put that disk in and received a WARNING about losing all my files if I continued. This disk did not give me any choice to repair.
Then I looked at the "how to run chkdisk" article you suggested, and finally got the iso file recovery console copied correctly using imageburn. Boot with CD and it ran a bunch of stuff quickly but then it said standby and then nothing.....pressed any key and still nothing, just black screen after 5minutes...finally got the command prompt after 10minutes or so. Typed in chkdsk /r and it was stuck on 50% complete for over 30minutes - now at 52% after almost 60minutes. I will leave laptop on and check in morning.

thanks in advance.... I'll let you know how it turns out...

Thanks for posting your own thread. Always better to be independent to have your own issue corrected if possible.

You could follow this link to see how you go.

Keep us posted,

best regards,