toshiba laptop not booting vista

[Mr I]

Don't assume. I don't have a desktop.

1. As a technician you don't need a desktop to slave the drive.
2. You don't have a desktop or external cd drive or hard drive dock or bootable CD's, what do you have to repair computers?

 

[B Trevathan]

I don't recall saying anything about an update problem, because I'm not sure what is causing it. Anyways, looking at the products you pointed out, what is supposed to connect to the SATA side? I'm looking at the SATA drive right now and it definitely wouldn't fit the adapter pictured. It seems like I would need some sort of ribbon cable. I don't see it pictured in either of the products. Am I missing something? Does the power cable connect to one section of the drive and the SATA adapter to the other?

It may very well be an update problem, sometimes when you have malware and you do an update then when windows reboots it may stop booting at a black screen.

Sometimes when malware is blocking windows from loading you can press Ctrl + Alt + Del and open task manager and stop the malware and then from the file menu select new and run explorer.

Its odd that the internal CD drive and a external CD drive is both not working. Have you try booting to the external CD drive on a different computer?

Its also old that it wouldn't give you the option to boot in safe mode.

Have you try removing the internal CD drive and booting? It could be a hardware problem with the CD drive causing the computer not to boot.

The drive in your link was a SATA drive, if you are saying that you need a ribbon cable then the drive may be a IDE and not a SATA drive. Some USB to IDE and SATA adapters come with cables and some don't, you will have to read the adapter details and instructions to decide which one is best for what you want to do.
Here is a picture of one of the adapter with the cables:

Here's a picture of how it connects to the drives:

 

[vo1draid3r]

It may very well be an update problem, sometimes when you have malware and you do an update then when windows reboots it may stop booting at a black screen.

Sometimes when malware is blocking windows from loading you can press Ctrl + Alt + Del and open task manager and stop the malware and then from the file menu select new and run explorer.

Its odd that the internal CD drive and a external CD drive is both not working. Have you try booting to the external CD drive on a different computer?

Its also old that it wouldn't give you the option to boot in safe mode.

Have you try removing the internal CD drive and booting? It could be a hardware problem with the CD drive causing the computer not to boot.

The drive in your link was a SATA drive, if you are saying that you need a ribbon cable then the drive may be a IDE and not a SATA drive. Some USB to IDE and SATA adapters come with cables and some don't, you will have to read the adapter details and instructions to decide which one is best for what you want to do.
Here is a picture of one of the adapter with the cables:

Here's a picture of how it connects to the drives:

I'm positive it is a SATA drive. But after purchasing the above product and connecting it, it doesn't show up under my computer and now I am at a dead end. I've tried googling and it says the hard drive may be dead though it is recognized by the "disk management" feature. This is giving me a headache.

I should also note that the instruction manual that came with the product says to make sure the drive you are connecting has "jumper setting in Master mode." Of course, I wouldn't be able to set this seeing as how I can't even boot up the problematic computer.

 

[glricht]

I'm positive it is a SATA drive.
...
I should also note that the instruction manual that came with the product says to make sure the drive you are connecting has "jumper setting in Master mode." Of course, I wouldn't be able to set this seeing as how I can't even boot up the problematic computer.

With all due respect, I doubt you're going to get much help here. As shown to you when you registered, this web site and forums are for PC technicians and it is clear that you have not yet acquired the experience, knowledge and tools to handle a fairly simple situation. You need to take the laptop to a qualified repair shop.

For future reference, "jumper settings for Master mode" is applicable to IDE drives, not for SATA as you've said the HD is. In addition, if the HD was IDE, you set "Master mode" on the HD itself using jumpers, it's not something that requires a bootable PC.

 

[frenchscottie]

Did you try booting into safe mode?