In message , HB writes:
When it rains it pours. The Toshiba LP W-7 64 went dark. It was fine, was
shut off and when I hit the On button a few days later, just a black screen
with a blinking " - " in the upper left-hand corner. Tapping the F8 is
supposed to bring up Safe Mode (as per Google) but instead up came a screen
to do a memory scan. After it finished I tried again and it came up with 6
tabs of technical info that's alien to me. None of the tabs were for Safe
Mode. I had no way to know what to do on any of the screens. Anyone know how
to get Safe Mode to come up on a Toshiba W-7?

Where do I go from here? The LP actually gets little use and is like new. I
hate to recycle it.

I noticed a few days before that the battery wasn't charging. Since it was
almost always used plugged in, it didn't matter.

Safe Mode is part of Windows; the computer needs to be working even to
run that. (I. e. it's _not_ part of the computer.) Sounds to me as if
some part of the computer itself is not working: I'd have guessed the
hard drive, but the message suggests it might be the memory.

As an outside thing to try, but as it's easy to do: try physically
removing the battery, then seeing if it will boot; the non-charging
suggests the battery may have died; if it has, it _might_ have done so
in such a way that it's loading things excessively. Unlikely, but as I
say easy to try. (If system shows no sign of life at all with the
battery out, then the battery is OK, but the external power supply may
have died - does it have a light on it you can check? [Or have you a
voltmeter?] - or something in between: the power in socket, or its
solder connections, is a common culprit.)

If that proves not to make any difference, then in view of the message
about the memory, I'd _try_ removing and reseating that, in case it's
just not making proper contact: if still no, remove, clean its contacts,
and reseat. If still no good and there are more than one module, try
booting with just one then just the other.

Failing that, perhaps the same with the hard drive - I've had them just
slide out of contact.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Does my Bradshaw look big in this?