[Zonet]

Hi,

Two days ago I turned on my laptop and got a message "Repairing OS" or something to that effect with a diagnosis screen appearing. A message along the lines of "Windows is now repairing your system, this could take up to an hour" appears... Then it loops this over and over and over again infinitely!

Every Google search I have done suggestions that I use the "repair disk" or my Windows CD to fix the issue... That's all fine and dandy and what not but this is an OEM laptop which means it CAME WITH NO CD!

Toshiba refused to send one to me because they simply DO NOT offer that option! They suggested I send it in to them and they will try to fix it but could take 4 weeks! Which is half the problem because I'm currently abroad and can't do that.

What horse crap! Microsoft really outdid themselves this time, making all the manufactures get rid of OEM disks and have the recovery information on the HDD which I can't access because the second I turn it on it goes into an infinite loop of trying to repair the laptop.

I tried to use the Windows 8 ISO image downloader from Microsoft but when I enter the product key it tells me that the key is an OEM key and can not be used!

GRGH! There must be another way to fix this laptop, any suggestions?

 

[Zonet]

Its a shame my problem seems to be a unique one as no one has an answer for it.

I got a hold of a USB pen drive with an official copy of Windows 8 created with the official Microsoft tool. The problem is when I try to boot with it it skips this by saying "checking media presence - no media present" and just goes back into the infinite loop.

After hours of searching I came across the reason for that message and that is, I have to turn off UEFI however this can only be done through Windows itself which sucks even more.

I think I am almost their to fixing this problem however I would just need some help on how to get this EUFI setting to turn off without Windows as this option is not present in my BIOS.

The only other option I can see feasble is to remove the HDD, plug it into an external caddy and delete the partition with Windows 8 on it.

My DATA drive has all my documents and pictures, files etc so I should be safe to do so.

However, I am not sure if after not detecting an OS drive, the laptop would boot from the USB or not...