Need laptop help...Win XP on a Toshiba with a busted CD drive..
 

I came across a Toshiba Satellite A45 laptop, appears to be from about late 2003 loaded with Win XP.

I was told the CD/DVD drive was busted, and it had a virus at one point before it died; the user found the virus executable but accidentaly deleted every file on the machine starting with the letter "m"- don't ask me why. This has caused issues with the OS, which I can't attempt to repair or reload anyway with a busted CD drive. The drive will not open when pressing the eject button, ever. If I just let it boot up, I do get to a desktop screen and can move about folders, etc. Some functions like "add new hardware" do not respond.

I found a used CD/DVD drive on eBay which is supposed to be for this machine. Same model number, etc. I noticed on the label the busted drive I removed says M/S (like master/slave?) and the new used drive is marked "CSEL" not sure if that matters...every other marking and connection is the same. When I boot up the laptop with the new drive installed, it will immediately flash "IDE #1 ERROR" on a black screen, but I think the drive is o.k. because it will open now when hitting the eject button, etc.

Unfortuantely, I can't get the machine to recognize the drive, if I repeatedly press F1 and try to get to safe mode upon startup I can't, I can't get the machine to recognize a USB jump drive...the whole thing is kinda in la-la land.

Any thoughts or procedures you can think of that my help? If I have a straight Windows XP disc in the drive when I power up, the light on the CD drive flashes for a few seconds but it doesn't read the XP disc. :confused:

It also has a user and an admin account if that helps.

Thanks!

How about hitting F8 or F12 and getting it to boot this way? What is the default key to go into the setup mode?

Will it recognize the network port? Can you network it with another computer? If so then share the CD on the other computer and then load XP in its own directory (XP master or whatever you want to call it) then run setup from here?

Getting closer...

If I hit F12 while its booting, I get to a Toshiba screen where I can toggle between hard disk, CD, disk, network, and something else.

If I toggle to the CD and hit enter, it seems to ignore the drive and just goes on to boot up.

Grrr...no network card in my home PC, just USB slots. It does start the connection agent to establish a link though...

Is there some way I can get to the BIOS to have it wake up the CD drive??

Cd should be set to slave and try hitting esc key on boot for a Toshiba to get to the bios if I remember correctly.

Various ways into the Toshiba BIOS....

- Toshiba Laptops: - Toshiba Utility

- Toshiba: - Press Esc during boot

-Toshiba, Phoenix, late model PS/1 Value Point and 330s: - Press F1 during boot

- Toshiba - press ESC and then F1 when prompted


A firmware update may be available as well.

BGCarrera32,

Any chance you are in the Thousand Oaks/San Fernando Valley? If so, I can help. I do Toshiba Latop Warranty repair. I have a lot of cd drives lying around.

Dave

Thanks for the tips. I got to the BIOS with the ESC key and switched my boot order to force it to poke the CD drive first. With the old bunk CD drive it just skips by; with the new drive it says "IDE #1 ERROR". So I either got a dud used drive or the wrong one. I'll have to try a network connection...

Thanks for the offer slodave but I am in MN.

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."


<b>Another approach:</b>

"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"

I have another idea: pull the hard drive out of the computer, find someone with the same laptop model, swap the hard drives, use your CD to do a fresh install on your HD (I would recommend reformatting the HD), then put the HD back in your machine and it should boot just fine. The only difficult part is to find another similar laptop, but it might work with any computer.

Aurel

I like the slodave approach! being in the biz, he would know best...

CSEL stands for cable select. On newer computers you can let the cable mange the master/slave issue. The M/S is probably for master/slave. What was the model number of the drive? Did you get an extended warranty? I hate to say it, but there is a chance that the motherboard is bad.

Dave

Slodave,

I don't want to hijack this thread - just a quick question. I just bought a Fujitsu N3530 lifbook for my wife. Just curious as to how well this model holds up. So far I really like. My desktop computer harldey gets used now.

The model number of both drives I have is SD-R2412.
The busted one I took out says M/S, the new-used one is CSEL.

I got this thing free basically and all I want to do is get it running so I can purchase some OBD2 and Audi VAG-COM dongles and software. I did notice that none of the USB ports are responding, but again the OS got all screwed up by the last guy. sloddave if you have a working drive you can let go for a reasonable price or fix these laptops on the side, can you send me a PM?

Thanks- BG

(and thanks RickM for the other approach, its probably worth a shot)

These days I like the Fujitsu better than Toshiba. The only thing that seems to be a problem across the board are the new SATA laptop hard drives. They seem to fail very quickley. I plan on getting a similar Fujitsu soon.

Dave

Laptop motherboards are difficult to repair. The only thing I usually fix is the power jack. I looked for that drive and we do not have that exact one lying around. I'd be happy to give it a shot, but don't expect miracles.

Dave