Tag Archives: Toshiba

recovering data from an ipod photo

Computer Aid Posted on by

A customer want to recover about 25Gb of music from her ipod photo (30GB hard drive).

Apparently, the ipod no longer works, and she deleted all her music from her PC. She said she reset the ipod multiple times, but it keeps coming up with either a blank screen, or a frowning face.

I give it a try, as it probably has a laptop 2.5″ hard drive.

Turns out it has a weird Toshiba 1.8″ HDD… the connector looks identical to an CF card connector, except for a circle and an oval hole past the end of the rows of pins…

Hmmm, this is looking more difficult than I thought.

There is no indication that the drive will not work in a CF reader, so I try it… but it doesn’t work… it doesn’t even start spinning.

Another alternative, is to buy a special (ie expensive) adapter, so that it will “talk” over a normal IDE cable…

I’m not sure I want to go down that path. I figure I’ll just reassemble it, and give it back (no fix no charge).

Out of curiosity, I look at the apple website, and go through the troubleshooting section… I give the ipod a reset… and after the second reset, it comes back to life!

Unfortunately, the customer has already purchased a new ipod… so it looks like she’ll have 2 ipods now…

Another overheating Athlon laptop

Computer Aid Posted on by

Customer was having trouble running MS office on a Toshiba laptop. On closer inspection, I found I couldn’t run some parts of the control panel , and IE was behaving strangely.

Customer didn’t need the data on the laptop, so I decided a clean install of XP.

That was the start of a few problems (if I had known, I probably would have said throw the laptop in the bin).

First problem was that the DVDROM drive was having problems reading CDs… maybe it was a DVD only drive, so it couldn’t read CDs, but it could read CDs sometimes. Anyway the DVD drive is on its last legs.

I try installing XP, but partway through, it complains about not being able to find a file… try again, and this time it spontaneously reboots in the middle of the installation.

I notice that the cpu fan is blowing some very hot air… so the Athlon CPU (and/or DVD drive) could be be struggling (on a very warm 30 degree day).

I point a 12″ cooling fan towards the laptop, and this time XP installs correctly.

I then install office, XP updates, and my usual security software (defender, antivir, etc)

I then connect it to my wireless network via my trusty netgear WG111v2 usb wireless adapter…. but the adapter doesn’t connect properly (it will see the WAP, and even connect sometimes), but no network traffic coming in…

I try the next usb port, and it connects without a problem.

Ok, flaky DVD, USB, CPU, low memory (196Mb RAM)… at least it works, but I tell the customer that if it breaks down in the future… its best to toss it out (or I could use it for parts, and I’ll pay a modest fee for it).

Toshiba laptop, linux, and low memory.

Computer Aid Posted on by

This laptop (toshiba satellite 1800, ps181a-00wfx, 800Mhz, P3), runs windoze me… Customer would like it cleaned up & possibly upgraded to windows XP.

I take a look & given that it only has 64Mb of ram, I recommend upgrading memory by at least 128Mb, preferably 256Mb. The cost of also upgrading to XP & my fee will be fairly high, so I give the customer a few choices (and prices). He chooses to keep windows me, but to upgrade to 256Mb + 64Mb

So I order the memory & while waiting for it to arrive, I look at fixing windows me.

The first problem to fix is to remove a mild spyware infection.

The second task is to fix the sound (it should work, but it doesn’t… windows doesn’t report anything wrong, but there is no sound from the speakers). I was also told that the DVD drive doesn’t play DVD movies anymore, so it might be related.

To see if I can hear any sound from the speaker, I try to boot a few variations of knoppix, I even try “Damn small linux” and bart pe. But they all fail at some point in the boot process… looks like 64Mb is just too small for most OS’s.

At this point, all I can do an “in place” reinstall of windows me, and then the sound works just fine.

I then run windows update until the PC is fully patched, then I update antivir and spyware blaster, & scan the PC for any more nasties (none are found).

I also do a defrag & clear out tmp & cache folders (anything to speed things up a bit)

The DVD player is a lot more problematic. The PC already has powerdvd, & about 4 other DVD players installed, & none of them work. Most actually cause the PC to freeze, requiring a reboot… Quite time consuming.

In the end, I uninstall all the non-working DVD players, and I try installing JetAudio and media player classic. Both work flawlessly. I suspect the problem might have been a corrupt system file, so installing some different players (and removing the old ones) fixed things.

When the memory arrived, I installed it & it certainly made a big difference to the speed.

Another happy customer.

Toshiba laptop won’t boot

Computer Aid Posted on by

I got a funny toshiba laptop to fix…

Its only 1 year old, but has spent most of its life in “storage” (police evidence). Client has only just got the laptop back.

Client doesn’t have anything important & doesn’t mind a reformat.

First I boot a knoppix CD & it works fine & sees the HD

So I repartition, reformat, reinstall XP, & all seems to work fine.

Next day, the laptop is back… won’t boot again.

I try installing knoppix to the HD, & it also works fine

But client says it still doesn’t boot… the bios doesn’t seem to detect the HD.

I look at it & sure enough, it tries to boot from floppy, & the CD, but the HD doesn’t even show during the POST screen… I go into the bios & it doesn’t show the HD either… curious.

After a reboot, the HD is detected & it tries to boot… So I give it another reboot & then re-install win XP.

A few reboots later, & I notice that the HD doesn’t show up again…

The web gives no hint of a cause.

I flash the latest Toshiba bios (its no help)

I decide to swap HD with the one in my ibm laptop.

Wow! Taking the HD out of the Toshiba is not for the faint hearted! I have to almost dismantle the entire laptop, just to get to the HD… take the screen off, the keyboard, a bit of plastic above the keyboard (which makes load cracking & snapping noises… very unnerving).

Anyway, the IBM detects the toshiba HD every time (after 11 reboots).
The toshiba detects the ibm hd every time also…

So, put everything back (snap, crackle, pop, crunch!), & then I’m back to square one.

I suspect it could be a bootup timing problem (bios checks for HD, but HD isn’t ready to (or is too slow to) respond… by the time the HD is ready, the bios has moved on to other things…

I’ve go nothing better to do, so I boot the laptop about 100 times… I notice it detects the HD about 4 or 5 times, and the “detections” seem “clustered” ie 2 detections in a row.

I give the client his options:

1) keep the laptop always running… if it switches off, you need to reboot until it detects the HD.
2) Get a new HD, but no guarantee that the new HD will work any better (I suspect a non-toshiba HD has a good chance of working)

He decides to go with option 1)

Update 01/10/2005: Client eventually got a flat battery & was unable to boot again. He went & bought a new hdd & an external usb enclosure & is now happy.