You may recall about 3 weeks ago, I made a post about my Desktop having issues.
Luckily this time, it isn’t my desktop, but rather my 3-month old Toshiba laptop!
It began at about 11am on Thursday 2nd May. I was about to go for my Tea-Break at work and I always lock the computer (WinKey+L), and the screen went blank. Side note: The computer was working perfectly before this happened. No lock screen came up. I thought nothing of it and just went for my tea-break.
Came back and it was still a black screen. I couldn’t login or anything so, I turned off the laptop using the power button. When I pressed that button again to turn it on. Shit hit the fan!
The “Toshiba – Leaving Innovations” logo came up and the Windows 8 loading ‘dots’ also appeared and then faded out. Got nothing. So, I waited a few minutes and then EVENTUALLY it loaded. Got to type in my password but it didn’t ‘feel’ right. After I pressed Enter on the keyboard after entering my password, it kept jumping from Metro Modern UI and the Desktop. I eventually managed to get the computer to stay on Desktop, but the background was black, no icons, taskbar had locked up.
There was a “xxxxError.exe” (I don’t remember the first 4 letters) box, but there was no content in the dialogue box, just the border of the window and nothing more.
I knew there was definately something wrong, so I rang Toshiba in the UK. They told me to do a “Refresh”. This would keep my files but un-install all my programs. Better than nothing, right? WRONG! It got worse. I let the refresh happen anyway and instead of fixing it, it made it twice worse! It had essentially created a dual boot of Windows 8 with….Windows 8! And did any of them work? NOPE! Course it didn’t. One of them just went to a black screen and the other just keep boot looping!
Back onto Toshiba support about this and the guy says to me to “Reset” the computer. (This would put a Day 1 install of Toshiba’s OEM version of Windows 8 (inc the Bloatware) back onto the computer!)
I started the Reset at 1:45pm and it didn’t finish until about 6pm. Yay! Brand new computer up and running and all ready to go. Just put all my programs and all back on and we shall be good to go……………..wait! (yes, there is ANOTHER issue).
On the bottom right of the Desktop, I see “Windows 8 – Build 9200”. My face went from this 🙂 to O_o. IT’S NOT ACTIVATED! So, I got into the PC Settings and I couldn’t activate the machine. I was furiously bashing on the “Activate” button, but no…wasn’t working at all.
Rang Toshiba…oh no. Couldn’t. It was after 6pm and they were closed for the evening. 🙁
The Next Day!
Friday morning, a day before the bank holiday weekend and I am dealing with this shite! Non activated laptop and me having work to do!
Rang Toshiba as soon as I got into work and was onto them for 15 minutes…just for them to tell me that I had to ring Microsoft to get the computer activated.
Rang Microsoft. We tried to do phone activation. Nope…nothing. They told me to go back to Toshiba. So, I did.
Toshiba…We have to take the computer away from you to get activated. WHAT! They are taking my 3-month old laptop away from me because it WON’T ACTIVATE! (I will say at this point, that OEM versions of Windows 8, do not come with product keys or even a sticker showing it. It is embedded within Windows itself).
So, here I am now on Sunday morning, with a laptop all packed up in it’s box, ready to be picked up on Tuesday just so it can be activated.
This is ridiculous. Sending the laptop away to get activated! 🙁
Anyway, that is all I can say about this for now and I will update once I get the laptop back from Toshiba and see what they have actually done to the machine :/
EDIT: I got the laptop back on the 14th and it is working beautifully again 😀