I have a M200 that has been the bane of my exist

**Henry17** · 03-24-2007, 05:29 AM

I have a M200 that has been the bane of my existence. It has been into repairs 6 times. On it's 3rd keyboard, 3rd power adapter, 4th mainboard and 2nd CPU.

Last week the HD died. The computer was under warranty so I took it to an authorized dealer and they have now replaced the HD.

The computer was returned to me with no operating system since the authorized repair center does not own a USB drive that an M200 will boot from. I've called every local repair center and none of them own a compatible drive.

I have the recovery disks but my external USB CD/DVD drive is not one that is on the list of drives which a M200 will boot from either. After some searching I found instructions on how to use a USB Floppy to boot and then use a generic USB drive.

I did that. Got a list of 10 drives to choose from. Picked a drive at random and it seemed to work. I got the Toshiba recovery screen with all the this will erase all you data are your sure etc. Then the Toshiba branded version of Ghost kicked in and went thought asking for each recovery disk in order and finally telling me to remove all disks and reboot.

I thought this had worked except I still get

PXE-E61: Media Test Failure. Check Cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel Boot Agent
Insert System disk in drive.
Press any key when ready....

---------

I have booted using DOs4NTSF on a floppy and I can see that drive C: exists and that it has all the files you'd expect.

I followed the instructions in the other topic to the tee except that in those instructions the bootimage the person found on their recovery CD was Arnes Boot Record while the image on my recover CD was something called BootImage.img. It was the correct 1.44M size though and the instructions implied the file could have a different name. Regardless the restore seems to have worked except I still can't boot.

I also tried installing just regular old WindowsXP Corp on the tablet. I booted off floppy and used put my Windows CD in the USB drive. Formated c successfully. Then I changed the directory to q:\I386 and used Winnt. It copied all the required files for an install to the harddrive and then was suppose to reset and install WindowsXP but again I got the non-system disk error.

Can anyone help me?

I've filed a complaint with the BBB so I expect a call from Toshiba next week but this computer has been dead or at repairs more time then I've had it and it is very central to my business to have use of it. I'd like to get it working today.

Toshiba tech support has been less then helpful. I actually think half the employees may be retarded. They certainly don't know anything about their own products.

**WNewquay** · 03-24-2007, 05:32 AM

Where in Canada?

**Henry17** · 03-24-2007, 05:42 AM

Ottawa Ontario

**WNewquay** · 03-24-2007, 06:46 AM

Hi Henry - that's too bad. I was hoping you were on the West Coast and that maybe we could meet up around my bootable drive and just get this done.

But I just re-read your lead post.

Have you gone into the bios to set the boot priority to the hard disk? The error message seems to suggest that it's trying to read the hard disk anyway, but I'm not sure.

**Henry17** · 03-24-2007, 09:50 AM

I thought that as well given how fast it goes to the network boot. Plus I also wanted to make sure that I had at least version 1.5 of the BIOS (since with older versions it won't boot off any USB drive) so I had checked and it is set to HD first.

Regardless even if it was doing network first when the network fails it would then cycle down and eventually get to the HD. Plus I also tried selecting HD from the boot menu when the Toshiba splash screen is up and that also didn't help.

The idea that the tech who installed the HD might have not set the jumpers correctly has crossed my mind. All my computers have been SCSI so I know nothing about IDE drives except that they have masters and slaves. Given that I can boot off floppy and see all the files on C: and that a simple WinXP Corp install failed I've been questioning the possibility that the HD jumpers are set to non-booting or slave. I don't know if this is even possible and calling Toshiba tech support didn't get me an answer either.

**WNewquay** · 03-24-2007, 10:10 AM

Hi Henry,

quote:
After some searching I found instructions on how to use a USB Floppy to boot and then use a generic USB drive.

I did that. Got a list of 10 drives to choose from. Picked a drive at random and it seemed to work. I got the Toshiba recovery screen with all the this will erase all you data are your sure etc. Then the Toshiba branded version of Ghost kicked in and went thought asking for each recovery disk in order and finally telling me to remove all disks and reboot.

Did you format the drive in an external USB enclosure or in the M200. I think that must format the drive in the M200 for it to be recognized properly.

Also, there is a similar thread here:

http://www.tabletpcbuzz.com/forum/to...TOPIC_ID=34947

I'm not sure there is an answer for you there, but it might trigger some lateral brainstorm.

**Henry17** · 03-24-2007, 03:18 PM

I've gotten it to work sort of.

Using a bootdisk from XXclone in the floppy the Tablet will boot and then Windows Tablet from the restore will kick in and the computer is perfectly functional so long as I don't turn it off.

If I turn it off then I have to again use the floppy to get it started.

I'm thinking the MBR is damaged but I have no idea how to fix that.