Toshiba laptop keeps crashing

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Guest

My boss has a Toshiba laptop running Windows XP that keeps on shutting down
completely when I start running Disk Cleanup. I have run a defrag, a disk
check for errors, Norton Antivirus scan. Is there a chance that a file could
have been deleted somewhere when it had a virus and Norton had given the
option to delete? As I am the only computer literate person my boss knows,
she has asked me to fix it. I would really like to know if there would be a
chance of fixing this before I end up formatting the harddrive and
reinstalling eveything from scratch. That would be my job this weekend if I
have to... still have Christmas shopping to do... :P Any advice would be
totally appreciated!!! Thanks
Jules
 
Jules said:
My boss has a Toshiba laptop running Windows XP that keeps on shutting
down
completely when I start running Disk Cleanup. I have run a defrag, a
disk
check for errors, Norton Antivirus scan. Is there a chance that a
file could have been deleted somewhere when it had a virus and Norton
had given the
option to delete? As I am the only computer literate person my boss
knows,
she has asked me to fix it. I would really like to know if there
would be a chance of fixing this before I end up formatting the
harddrive and
reinstalling eveything from scratch. That would be my job this
weekend if I
have to... still have Christmas shopping to do... :P Any advice would
be
totally appreciated!!! Thanks
Jules
Click to expand...

There could be many reasons for this, not least a bad hard drive,
overheating, bad RAM, etc. Here is information on testing the hard
drive and RAM:

Test the hard drive with a diagnostic utility from the mftr. Download
the file and make a bootable floppy or cd with it. Boot with the media
and do a thorough test. If the drive has physical errors, replace it.

Test the RAM - I like Memtest86+ from www.memtest.org. Obviously, you
have to get the program from a working machine. You will either
download the precompiled Windows binary to make a bootable floppy or
the .iso to make a bootable cd. If you want to use the latter, you'll
need to have third-party burning software on the machine where you
download the file - XP's built-in burning capability won't do the job.
In either case, boot with the media you made. The test will run
immediately. Let the test run for an hour or two - unless errors are
seen immediately. If you get any errors, replace the RAM.

It could also be a software problem, but there is no way to give you an
accurate diagnosis without seeing the machine based on the information
provided. I would determine that the cause is *not* hardware before
reinstalling Windows, however. A software solution (Windows) on bad
hardware is useless.

However, if I were you unless you are a *professional* computer repair
person I'd tell your boss to contact Toshiba tech support or take the
machine to a local professional shop (not a BigStore-type of place).

Malke
 
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