Restarting laptop to factory settings?

xxxxaisling

Toshiba satellite L450D- 113.

Withen the first 3 months of buyng this laptop it started to run slow and do all sorts of unusual stuff and eventully wouldnt come on. Brought it back to where it was bought to be fixed and they charged €50 saying the problem was to do with software and wasnt covered under warrenty.

When i got the laptop back it had been wiped and worked perfectly again.

6 months later the same things began to happen again- laptop running slow and doing disc checks etc.
I went online and found steps to restart the computer myself to its factory settings and did this grand, no trouble
However my microsoft office was also wiped along with this.

So i had to install the microsoft office again!


Now once again the laptop is playing up and this time im wondering is there a way of restarting it without losing the microsoft office?

Any help would be greatly appriciated!!

norbert64

If it's doing random disc checks, then I fear you may be looking at a messed up HDD?

Regarding your main question though, most of the big name manufacturers usually have a repair option included alongside the ''RESET to factory settings''' option.
http://www.fixya.com/support/t2203316-access_recovery_console_from_startup

If that doesn't work, if you could get your hands on a windows cd/dvd for your respective OS, you could try running the repair option on that.

For your issue at hand though, either repair most likely won't be of much use.
You don't really have a technical problem per se, it's more a performance issue.

TBH, if you are really that fed up with the performance, while it will obviously mean more work and losing office, I think you would be better off going with a full re-format, reset to factory settings again.

This time however, once the re-install is complete, you could perhaps try creating a restore point and then should the need arise, just use ''system restore'' to roll back to a friendlier state.

yoyo

Disk checks such as scan disk generally only occur on a hard drive which is failing or has many bad sectors, this sounds to me more like a hard disk issue than a software one. Reformatting may temporarily fix this issue, but its only temporary. Run a hard disk diagnostic on the disk drive to be sure, see here

Nick

fogy

exactly the same problem im having.

Do ye know why the HDD could be broken. Like what causes this?

yoyo

fogy wrote: »

exactly the same problem im having.

Do ye know why the HDD could be broken. Like what causes this?

Most common is the drive got a knock at some point, but also there mechanical drives and can fail randomly due to many different reasons. Backup your data if your getting disk check warnings and run a hard disk diagnostics on the drive to confirm it

Nick

fogy

Ah thanks, is it better off buying a completly new laptop if i find HDD is failing or can it be fixed?

yoyo

fogy wrote: »

Ah thanks, is it better off buying a completly new laptop if i find HDD is failing or can it be fixed?

Quite an easy fix tbh, you just need to get OS restore discs and swap the old drive for the new. On some laptops you need to remove the keyboard to access the drive, others the palm rest or some even have a handy slide out tray. Run diagnostics to see if its the hard disk has failed before ordering a new drive.
Look for a "service manual" for your laptops model, even look on youtube for laptop model hard disk replacement, someone may have even made a video tutorial how to access the hd bay!

Good luck

Nick

norbert64

fogy wrote: »

Ah thanks, is it better off buying a completly new laptop if i find HDD is failing or can it be fixed?

Your lappy takes a standard 2.5'' sata hard drive.

Download your service manual here
http://www.tim.id.au/blog/tims-laptop-service-manuals/#toc-toshiba

Easy enough to replace.

You can get one for a reasonable price over on adverts.
http://www.adverts.ie/

yoyo

norbert64 wrote: »

Your lappy takes a standard 2.5'' sata hard drive.

Download your service manual here
http://www.tim.id.au/blog/tims-laptop-service-manuals/#toc-toshiba

Easy enough to replace.

You can get one for a reasonable price over on adverts.
http://www.adverts.ie/

OP isn't the same poster, so it may be an older IDE based hard disk he/she needs, This is something as a Moderator I'll be discussing with the other forum mods if people bump other threads with their own queries if we should split to a new one for their query, this prevents confusion like this from happening

Nick

norbert64

yoyo wrote: »

OP isn't the same poster, so it may be an older IDE based hard disk he/she needs, This is something as a Moderator I'll be discussing with the other forum mods if people bump other threads with their own queries if we should split to a new one for their query, this prevents confusion like this from happening

Nick

hehe, can't be too mad I guess. Have done it myself once upon a time.
Going by the OPs description, I think we are probably talking about a faulty HDD issue here, so he/she and fogy are probably in the same boat really. :cool:

fogy

norbert64 wrote: »

hehe, can't be too mad I guess. Have done it myself once upon a time.
Going by the OPs description, I think we are probably talking about a faulty HDD issue here, so he/she and fogy are probably in the same boat really. :cool:

Happens to be the same laptop aswell! so all is good .....Thanks guys! il be sure to post back when i get my head round all this stuff yer telling me. Not computer minded at all. Thanks alot