My mother has asked me to fix a toshiba laptop that's 'gone funny'.

She reported that it started acting strangely and not responding.

I fired it up to see that it was attempting to configure windows (7) following an update.

All you get's a blue screen error message now. It won't go into 'windows repair mode' won't start in safe mode and won't return to last good configuration.

There's nothing important on there so I guess a clean install of windows is the simple solution. Have no disc though and the sticker with the windows key has rubbed off.

What's the easiest way do get a new copy of windows or is there another way to encourage the stupid POS to into life?

Cheers
Tim

ISOs can be had here and then run something like UBCD and using the Keyfinder included.

Updated January 22, 2013 at 9:45 AM

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DeskJockey
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Now fueled by heavy oil...

It sounds really similar to a situation I had with a friend's Toshiba laptop that I'd tried to do a clean install on. Basically the update had completely fried something (seriously - actually caused a hardware problem) and it had to be thrown away. Good luck.

Cheers peeps. The error code apparently translates as simple failure to locate the hard drive. Google shows lots of people moaning about this latest update on various forums and having similar problems. Some fixed by simply removing and replacing the hard drive. No joy here with that though.
I'll try re-installing windows and if that doesn't work I'll chuck it in the bin and buy her a tablet. She only uses it for web browsing anyway.