I have a Toshiba Satellite L300 - 20 N system. It came with Vista and I then installed Windows 7. I have not been able to download SP 1 . I get a variety of error messages. I am sick of it and yesterday I reinstalled W 7, thinking that I would get rid of the dreaded Vista ............ It seems not. Can anyone WALK me through the procedure of properly formating the HD? Is it really necessary??Did you upgrade from vista to 7?
To (quick) format the HDD, use the 7 boot disk, delete all partitions, and then create new partitions as you wish.EXACTLY how did you install Windows 7?Most likely your problem was not the operating system.

You should not have any problem  installing  Windows 7. However, many people have Toshiba laptops with Vista and do not have problems.  More likely scenario is that something happened ed to your laptop that is not typical and is not due to weakness of them Operating System.

If the Toshiba began to fail inside the warranty period, you shoddily have reported it to the manufacture. Even now, getting help from them is your first option to investigate.

If another PC is available, of if a friend will help, you can get a memory diagnostic software to test the memory. And there are other tools ti test the hard drive. Motherboard failures will also show up in either memory or hard drive tests.
The point being made is is this: There r is no evidence that euros on Toshiba
laptops are caused by the Vista OS. You assumption was, apparently,  wrong.

As to formatting the hard drive, that is a carry over from about TEN  years ago.Back then it was used to 'repair' failing  drives. Noways It is done to mainly to remove unwanted files from the files system. The quick format option does this.
Thank you all

Geek ??

I think that your summation is probably correct - The Vista OS is not the cause of the problem.

However I have reinstalled W7 and have to go through all the pain of installing programs.

Do you advise me to carry on, or do a full format first or take your advise and carry on?

I live a long way from a Toshiba agent so will follow up on the hardware checks on the internet

I await your response. Thanks
The full format should not be needed. But, if your system can go through a full format without a crash, that wound be encouraging. That would lead you to think it was a 'glitch' that went away. Maybe a hole in the ozone layer, or something like that.
Suggestion. Do not try to format the whole thing. format less than half the drive, or a minimum if 12 GB for Windows 7. It will go faster, less likely to fail. Later use the remaining area for a data partition(s) as you like. You know that My Documents can go on another partition.
If it turns out that the hard drive is failing, using smaller partitions is none workaround I have used. Sometimes you may have to skip the first 500 MB of a drive if the bad sectors are in that area. But based on my own observations, laptop drives, when the go bad, go really bad.
Now it it is the hard drive, that is GOOD news. A replacement drive for a Toshiba is a fraction of the price of the machine when it was new. A new hard drive does wonders for a laptop. Make sure you get one that is a very close replacement. I believe you can use the same caddy(tray) for a new hard drive.
Thanks Mr (Prodigy) Geek

It was really good to be to actually get a response to one of my questions.

I will stop meddling and move on.

I have other issues that I need to learn about, so will be back to the site again.

Bye the way, I have tried various free security systems..... Found Avg not to0 intrusive but felt that the changing form one to another left remants behind which caused conflict. This time, I downloaded MSE. It seems a little slow. What do you advise??

Regards

JohnI am using MSE now. I ,had my doubts, so I just did two scans using bookable AV software. Both scans turned up noting. So MSE appears to be on the job. some tings SEEM slow, but that is to be expected for a vigilant AV program. It does not affect my ability to watch full screen movies, and my graphics a not so great. This is my Dell laptop I use in t the house. After summer is over, I will move back out to the barn where I have two desktops.
I have had good results with AWG, Avast, Alvira and even PCTools. This is the first time I have used MSE and am surprised that it does the job  well. I mean, how could anything good come from a city named Redmond.   The only question here is if your laptop is upgradeable to win 7 and the drivers are available once OS is installed. Quote from: jason2074 on August 12, 2011, 12:39:06 AM

The only question here is if your laptop is upgradeable to win 7 and the drivers are available once OS is installed.