Toshiba Satellite P750 Laptop. Win 7 Home Premium 64bit. 6GB RAM. 500GB Toshiba HDD.
When PC goes into a reboot (which it does for no apparent reason up to several times per day) it displays “Intel UNDI PXE-2.1 (build 083). Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller Series v2.35 (06/14/10). PXE-E61: Media Test Failure, check cable. PXE-MOF: Exiting PXE ROM. Reboot & select proper boot device . . . ”
In normal Windows operation, Windows sometimes reports that HDD has problems and recommends an immediate data backup. Win Backup crashed part way through with above Realtek Msg following reboot.
Eventually rebooted successfully and ran C:>Properties>Tools>Check Now, with both boxes ticked. No errors coming up on HDD.
No problems booting from any of several Utility Boot CDs and running HDD diagnostics. All pass. Memory also passes.
AVG Rescue CD (latest AV library download) reports no viruses. Again, no problem recognising HDD & running a full AV scan of all partitions on the HDD (partition set up has not been altered from default ex-factory).
Loaded Mini XP OS from CD, installed and used SyncBack with no issues to backup all user data to external HDD.
No problem booting to HDD Factory Recovery partition from F12 Setup and reloading Windows. However, the latter stage of Factory Recovery on Toshiba requires several reboots. Immediately back into the Realtek issue above, with multiple attempts needed to get a successful boot to HDD. HDD and memory removed, connectors cleaned and reseated. No change. Boot error still occurring. Up to stage 14 of 71 of the processes following initial Win 7 factory reinstall. But very slow going with several reboots required each time reinstall progresses to the next stage.
I can understand that the Realtek error most likely is because boot order is CD, HDD, (or have also tried HDD, CD), USB, LAN and boot up is not always recognising HDD so “falls through” to LAN and obviously fails. Suspect that is what Realtek error is about (fail to boot from LAN). Sometimes get a better result if I manually select HDD in Boot Setup via F12, but still not consistent.
I note from forums there are a lot of people having this same Realtek error issue, so some realistic feedback from a more advanced tecchie would be helpful to more people than just me. Given this is a laptop, please no comments that apply only to desktops and remember this is a Toshiba Hard Disk so Seatools will not work, etc.
Seems to be a failing hard disk issue but reticent to try an expensive replacement, given that three different HDD tests have come up with no faults and HDD works faultlessly when accessing via Linux or Mini XP OSs from CD. Both before and after factory reinstall, Paragon Partition Manager CD reports no issues in recognising all partitions on HDD and all HDD parameters appear as expected for successful boot from HDD. (Partitions not altered from factory setup).
Am I missing something simple in the above? Or is it off to the Laptop factory for more advanced testing and repair?
Solved Realtek PXE-E61: Media Test Failure, Check Cable
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1. The hard drive itself might be faulty. Your diagnostics tests have not revealed any issues with it once it is detected and running and the only way to be certain would be to attach another known good drive. Install an operating system on it and see if you still get the boot /reboot error.
2. If we presume there is nothing wrong with the drive then the next link in the chain is the cable connecting it to the motherboard. Does it have separate connections for power & data? Not sure in laptops there is even a cable. It may plug directly into a header connection on the motherboard and that is the next possibility:
3. the motherboard may have an intermittent fault associated with the drive connection/controller. Such faults would generally not be easy to identify or correct and would probably require replacement of the motherboard.
From your description of symptoms and the lack of any data corruption I suspect the problem is restricted to the power circuits.
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