F33-FF00-0006 Error in Recovery

Question

Hello,
I'm attempting to fix a laptop for a friend.  The hard disk in the laptop was gradually failing with quite a number of bad sectors, all seemingly on the OS partition, and it wouldn't boot.  The first partition (WinRE?) and the last (Toshiba recovery?) seemed to be intact.
So, I took an image of the first and last partitions on the disk, got a new hard disk, and restored those partitions to the new disk, making sure to line up the partitions with the same sectors as on the old disk. 
Now, when I boot into the Toshiba Recovery console, I receive the message:
F33-FF00-0006
Failed to get the ID of the specified partition.
I've Googled all around, and the general consensus seems to be "get Toshiba's recovery discs," however, I have the recovery partition and I can boot into it, so it seems like there must be something simple to do to make it boot.
I saw a thread somewhere on this forum that suggested creating the file C:\Windows\System32\winload.exe on the OS partition, which did not work for me.  I even was able to copy that file off the old hard disk and put it on the new disk, which still did not enable Toshiba Recovery to boot.
Any ideas?
OS: Windows Vista
Laptop Model: L505-S5965
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Answer 1

I ended up solving the problem with a rather unusual solution.
On a hunch, I installed Linux Mint 12 on the OS partition - partition #2.  When I did so, Linux Mint installed the GRUB bootloader, which automatically detected the Windows Recovery Environment.  So, when I rebooted, I could select "Windows Recovery Environment" from the GRUB menu.
This took me, obviously, to WinRE.  WinRE asked me which operating system I wanted to repair, and although there were none in the list, it allowed me to click "Next."  This took me to the screen where I could select the Toshiba Recovery environment, and the recovery succeeded.
Thanks Peter, for the suggestions.  Hopefully this solution is helpful for someone else.