I have a Toshiba Satellite laptop that I bought new about three months ago. I often put it into sleep mode at night so I won't have to totally reboot the next morning. A few days ago I forgot to plug it in overnight. The battery must have run completely down, since it had no power the next day. I plugged it in and powered it up like normal - but it only got to the "Smith family" intro page with the spinning dots that go round and round, waiting for the desktop screen to appear. Except it never does. Those dots never stop going round and round. I tried booting into safe mode (by holding down the Shift key as I was told) when it starts, but it only booted to a blue screen with the same spinning dots and no change or alternate screen. I removed and replaced the battery - no change.
I didn't do anything out of the ordinary the last night I used the laptop. If I can't even get into it or get to safe mode, what else is there? And this is a *new* computer! Is this a Toshiba thing or what?
The only other option I can think of besides redoing the entire computer is: If you have the OS CD, you can put that, boot to the CD and run the repair feature.
It is apparently a Windows update that's caused the trouble due to its "automatic updates" feature that can't be disabled. Another brilliant move by Microsoft. Now I just have to figure out how to get in to uninstall that most recent update.
Good news is that I was able to access the computer again by holding the zero key and the power button simultaneously, which took me to the "do you want to reset your PC" option. I chose to keep my files and program and delete everything else.
Bad news is that it was taking a long time and I was at work, and I had to leave to go out of town immediately. I had to close the laptop when I left work, and I hoped for the best. Unfortunately, now when I do anything - any combination of keys so far - the power button only blinks a few times and stops. Nothing at all appears on the screen now, not even the spinning circle.
I don't know why closing the lid would have caused such a drastic turn, but.... Any suggestions?
Addendum: I unplugged the computer, removed the battery, held down the power button for at least 30 seconds (no power light came on), then put the battery back in. I pressed the power button again - and it blinked a few times, same as before, then ceased. Nothing ever appeared on the computer screen. Before, when I pressed zero and the power button, at least I got a reset screen. I don't believe it's a hardware problem, since before I closed the lid it was doing a system reset just fine - it was at 9% when I had to close it and exit the building. When I reopened it, it had powered itself off. The battery might have been low, and I had been driving for two hours.
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