Laptop Hard drive doesn't show up in Live Linux or Macrium Reflect

bledd · 21 Mar 2015 at 21:26

Hi,

My friend has a Toshiba Pro R50 laptop, went to take an image of it today and couldn't get any live boot media to see the hard drive..

It came with Windows 8.1, he's since put Windows 7 on it.

No matter what I changed in the BIOS, I couldn't get any live discs to see the drive, anyone else had an issue like this before?

BIOS was a UEFI style modern one, seemed to have very few options you could change.

It had already been set to non UEFI boot, to install Windows 7.

Stoner81 · 21 Mar 2015 at 23:17

Have you tried Acronis?

Stoner81.

wonko · 22 Mar 2015 at 06:18

Odd.. can the live disk see the disc controller ok?

bledd · 22 Mar 2015 at 09:34

It's listed as an Intel controller, can't find any BIOS options for changing the mode it's in or anything like that.

One thing to note, it is and SSD, a Crucial MX100 or MX500 I believe. Tempted to try a standard hard drive in there for my own curiosity.

Nothing showed up in...

Macrium linux
Macrium PE5
Parted Magic
Linux Mint

I don't really understand how Windows is booting on it

I've never seen an issue like this before, I'm thinking it may be a firmware issue on the SSD. Don't want to blame the laptop yet, surely this can't be it's standard behaviour.

Stoner81 · 22 Mar 2015 at 15:46

Have you tried using Legacy boot mode instead of UEFI?

Stoner81.

bledd · 22 Mar 2015 at 16:46

Yup, tried both

Stoner81 · 22 Mar 2015 at 20:43

OK I'm totally stumped on this one it makes no sense at all

Stoner81.

wonko · 22 Mar 2015 at 21:01

I just did a bit of a search and found some references to a custom bios and 'trusted platform module' on the r50-b model.
http://www.toshiba.co.uk/innovation/generic/Satellite-Pro-R50-B/
Could it perhaps be encryption/security that somehow prevents the disk from being visible to anything but the installed OS?

wonko · 22 Mar 2015 at 21:11

If it is a security feature, then apparently there should be a HWSetup program installed which may allow settings to be viewed/changed.
On one Acer laptop I've seen, you have to set an admin password in the bios before it shows you all of the advanced options covering secure boot etc. I wonder if this Toshiba could possibly be the same?

bledd · 22 Mar 2015 at 22:02

That feature is currently disabled on it.

I'll try a password in there next time I'm over at his place.

Thanks for the suggestion

It has the worst bios screen ever, so few options and little information on what the options do.

I'm no stranger to the bios or booting live discs

wonko · 23 Mar 2015 at 08:45

I'm out of ideas. Probably not a surprise really - I've read enough of your posts to know that if you're stumped then it won't be an easy one

.

bledd · 23 Mar 2015 at 08:49

It's not an essential requirement. But I prefer taking images from an 'offline' Windows install.

Would just be a pain to restore an image, would need a second machine to do it.

I'll try another drive before I explore the issue further.

wonko · 23 Mar 2015 at 09:30

I'd be interested to hear if you get any more clues from trying another drive.

bledd · 23 Mar 2015 at 10:18

Indeed, I don't want to point the finger at Toshiba or Crucial at this point, until I've worked out where the issue lies.

dhallam · 23 Mar 2015 at 11:21

Have you tried Clonzilla? Bit of a long shot but worth a try.

dhallam · 23 Mar 2015 at 11:26

Do you know if the laptop is using Trusted Platform Module (TPM) as some toshibia laptops do use it and this may be encripting the drive. I do repair lots of laptops but not yet come across one that uses TPM (yet)