Here's a link to some of the better advice for this problem. Apparently Toshibas are quite sensitive to changing out drives.
http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/thread1615.html
The bridging of pins 45 and 47 seem to be very common suggestion with the following being a common statement: "This is how I did it: find contact 47 (next to 49) on the DVD side of the IDE connector and bridge it to contact 45 with solder or a wire."
Here's one wordy description of the procedure:
"Toshiba Satellite 1805-s203
Unit: TOSHIBA SD-C2502 with Rom ver 1313
One year ago, I missflashed the unit and i didn't find the way to make it live again so i took off the part from my laptop so it could start windows faster than it did when the missflashed dvd was connected.
So this time i took some time reading the posts of many people and found the solution. You know a lot has been told about the famous pin 47 and 45 bridge connection.
Well here it is, you don't have to buy an IDE to LAP CD DRIVE connection or anything, the only thing you need is:
1. A tiny screwdriver X preferred
2. A piece of copper wire or another tiny wire (as thin as a hair) like 1cm long
Step by step.
NOTE: You don't have to find your original firmware, it's restored after the operation to RPC-2 With region code locked as originally was- Your computer must be off!
1.- Lift the plastic plate with the INTERNET and APP1 APP2 buttons with pressure
2.- Take off the 2 screws in the top of the keyboard
3.- Lift the keyboard and you'll see if you pay attention right under the letter "K" of your keyboard when you lifted it a screw that you have to take out and another screw you have to take out its the one just up the "F9 and F10" keys.
4.- Pull out the case of the DVD drive
5.- Remove the upper case of the DVD drive (3 screws and 2 at the back)
6.- In the back part of the DVD Drive its a tiny hole that you have to pull down a little "thing" that makes the dvd case come out
7.- After you've done all that YOU HAVE TO CHECK THE SCHEME JPG. wich is nothing but the pins name that you gonna use next
8.- With a flat screwdriver you have to pull back the pins 47 and 45 so you can attach in the back of them the piece of wire to make a bridge between them. (THIS MODE SETS YOUR DVD TO SLAVE)
9.- After that you have to close the dvd case and put it again at your laptop.
10.-Turn on your computer and as you can see by the time it takes to load windows your DVD is now back to life and restored with maybe 1 or 2 hours of work instead of buying a new one.
NOTE 2: If you missflash your drive again it's easy to make it live again, all you have to do its take the wire out and it's set back to MASTER
and again if you missflash it PUT THE WIRE AGAIN AND ITS SLAVE and again again again again."
Another approach:
"Burner Model: NEC ND-6500a
Notebook: Toshiba Satellite 1800-814
O.S.: Windows xp pro
1. Prepare the notebook removing the screws that blocked the DVD reader
2. Start the computer with the DVD Reader, stop the booting sequence (pressing F12), you'll obtain a screen in which you have to select the boot device. Before doing it, remove the DVD reader and insert the burner
3. Boot from a floppy containing a DOS that recognizes CD and start launching 6500BOOT.bat (contained in the 6500Boot.zip at
http://www.cdrinfo.com/forum/tm.asp?...5&mpage=1&key=)
4. Restart, doing the DVD change as in 2.
5. Launch 6500MAIN
6. Restart with the ND-6500 inside....no more IDE Error, Windows Xp sees it, everything works"