Toshiba BIOS

I will remove the battery.......the XP CD will partition the hdd and install the OS.........I am off to find out how to remove the RTC battery in the Toshiba laptop.........

jescab wrote:

the XP CD will partition the hdd and install the OS

Only if you use the tools on it and not expect it to boot to the CD and partition it as you install XP - that will only format a partition and not create one.

I have done partitioned and formatted drives with just the XP cd for yrs

this is the worst time i have ever had trying to get BIOS to see a hdd...

since you seem to think that XP will not partition a hdd how do you suggest i do that - this laptop does not have a floppy.....

JDMurray

Does the Toshiba BIOS support booting off USB devices? USB floppy drives are under $30US. I use them on my Dell laptops all the time. Damn handy.

jescab wrote:

I have done partitioned and formatted drives with just the XP cd for yrs

this is the worst time i have ever had trying to get BIOS to see a hdd...

since you seem to think that XP will not partition a hdd how do you suggest i do that - this laptop does not have a floppy.....

Well since XP has only been out since Oct 21, 2001, it is almost 5 years already....however, sometimes it is good to revisit those basic skills that seem 'obscelete'.

Fdisk:Format:Install.

If not a USB Floppy, how about a thumb drive? In either case, well worth having in the tool box.

Also,
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16812156101

IS one of my most favorite tools added earlier this year (Jan 2, 06). Watch out for imitations that only all 1 drive type not both 2.5/3.5"and atapi drives. (the power cable is in the center whereas the other brands have the power on the back side).

In some way, shape or form get the drive partioned and then I think you'll see some better results.

Or my old favorite:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16812203012

See if you can access the drive outside of the Toshiba.

Plantwiz wrote:

If not a USB Floppy, how about a thumb drive? In either case, well worth having in the tool box.

That is exactly what I use for Tosh laptops. Well I do if I forget to hook the drive up to my lab machine prior to installing it. I usually boot up my XP lab machine and use Windows Disk Management to create a partition.

I have also at times used the UBCD to initialise disks for OS install.

Slowhand

Have you checked Toshiba's downloads page for firmware and other updates? You have to make sure you know which A15 it is. Well. . . there is one fix you can try, which is the same for almost all Toshiba laptops, and that's running the DMI update utility:

http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/tais/su/su_sc_dtlViewDL.jsp?soid=1008299&moid=578117&BV_SessionID= @.gif

@1717987942.1157365526 @.gif

@&BV_EngineID=ccchaddikdklgfjcgfkceghdgngdgmn.0&ct=DL

This is intended for machines that aren't recognizing their hardware or recognizing their reinstall discs as valid. Give it a shot, otherwise it might be time to upgrade the firmware for the HDD controllers, or possibly flashing the BIOS.

OK - What I have done is take a hdd out of my working laptop and install it in the Toshiba and tried to boot up. BIOS did not recognize that working hard drive. I put the new hdd in another laptop and it worked perfectly. I put the XP cd in and partitioned and installed XP on the new hdd.

So now that does this tell us? The Toshiba laptop doesn't recognize a new hdd or a working hdd from another computer. The new hdd works perfectly in another laptop.

What should we try next to get the Toshiba laptop working?

sprkymrk

My thought all along is that the mother board is fried. Either that was the original problem rather than a bad hard drive, or else it could have been damaged during the hard drive replacement or some of the trouble shooting along the way.

It may be the connector on the MB to the hard drive, but otherwise it looks like you're due to replace the entire MB.
Good luck.

http://www.sparepartswarehouse.com/

OR

http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/agrp.to?coid=-26364&ccid=1291043&rcid=-26364&seg=HHO&src=BUEM&cm_mmc=google_SEM-_-brand-_-access-_-toshiba_laptop_part

JDMurray

If the mobo were fried then a BIOS flashing would most likely fail. It may be that the integrated IDE controller was damaged by the original hard drive when it went bad, or was damaged by whatever caused original the hard drive to go bad.

I assume that you've Googled for other Toshiba owners complaining about this same problem. Lord knows that Dell laptops have a common set of problems that people complain about on the Dell support forums all the time.

TheShadow

I have seen at least one laptops lose its cmos settings and refuse to locate a drive. All that was required was to set it back to auto or force it to identfy the drive and then set it to auto. I don't think that I have read where he went into cmos to see if the drive was identified unless I missed it.

Yes, I have gone into BIOS/CMOS a few times and it does not recognize the hdd.

Silver Bullet

I hate to keep pushing it but did you disconnect/reconnect the RTC battery and/or flash the bios?

Just thinking about this ... how was the original drive jumpered? laptops are very picky about this and mostly will not recognise a drive if it is not jumpered as per default settings. Remember that with different drives the pins you jumper may be different.

blargoe

The UBCD has an endless supply of motherboard, memory, etc. burn in tests that you could run to verify that your mobo does, in fact, have a problem.

OK what is UBCD?

The new drive is jumpered the same way the old hdd was jumpered. No jumpers at all and it is the exact same make/model hdd.

sprkymrk

jescab wrote:

OK what is UBCD?

The new drive is jumpered the same way the old hdd was jumpered. No jumpers at all and it is the exact same make/model hdd.

Ultimate Boot CD. Download the ISO here:
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

However, you need to be able to boot to the CD, which as I understand you are having trouble doing? This post is getting long and I can't remember if you are able to boot to a CD or not.

Yes, I can boot to the CD.

I never used this UBCD before what does it do........how do you use it

Is this UBCD something for the tool box......

Yup the UBCD is definitely a tool for the kit. Most of the included programs have excellent help files. What I would do in your case is go to the hard drive tools - -> to the next screen and run the appropriate manufacturers tool to ensure that you have a valid partition. After that you should be able to install from the XP CD.
When you run the manufacturers tool you will find whether the BIOS is in fact seeing the raw drive.

OK, I removed the RTC and left it our for 45 minutes. Then I put it back in, rebooted and it did not recognize the new hdd, the old hdd or a third hdd.

I am doing the UBCD now.

I ran thru the drive menu of the UBCD and that did not work.

I am completely baffled.

jescab wrote:

I ran thru the drive menu of the UBCD and that did not work.

I am completely baffled.

3rd HDD??

I thought I was following....Do you have 2 HDDs in this notebook? If so, is one slave and the other master?

Or did you simply mean you found yet another drive meaning
1. Original
2. replacement
3. 2nd possibly replacement

Silver Bullet

Looks like you need a Part replacement.

Sorry - earlier I stated that I pulled a hdd from a working laptop to see if it was recognized in the BIOS/CMOS and it was not.

1. Original
2. replacement
3. pulled from working laptop

jescab wrote:

Sorry - earlier I stated that I pulled a hdd from a working laptop to see if it was recognized in the BIOS/CMOS and it was not.

1. Original
2. replacement
3. pulled from working laptop

Thanks, I was loosing track.

I'm going to go back through the thread and see if I can map it out for myself....maybe something will jump out???

No problem - THANKS very much.........

Danman32

If I recall, you still haven't been able to get into the BIOS setup. That's where I would go. Often resetting the BIOS (like selecting default BIOS) clears up a lot of woes. I solved a boot problem on a DELL that originally looked like a PCMCIA problem.