Repair: Toshiba Satellite Laptop A135 S2326

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Someone came by to drop off a laptop for repairs. He got it for free and I now know why. He can't get the hard drive to unlock for booting. The person he got it from forgot the password, so he thought I could do something with it. I certainly did. I tossed the hard drive. :-)

Apparently the hard drive as the ability to lock. I did not realize that hard drives can lock, but it can and it can be locked within BIOS.

I reset BIOS on the machine (that was pretty difficult since it doesn't have jumpers) and the result was the same.

So I ended up with it. The person who brought it in decided it would be too expensive to fix, so I sold him a cheaper alternative....another computer that DOES work. He needed a computer today that worked.

This particular series of laptop had several models. This one was the cheapest of the A 135 series boasting a Intel Celeron 520 M processor at 1.6 GHz, 1 GB DDR2 RAM and a 80 GB hard drive.

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Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• toshiba
• satellite
• a135
• laptop
• computer
• hard
• drive
• lock
• password
• bios
• reset
• jumper
• computers
• electronics
• chips
• intel
• celeron
• m520
• laptops
• technology
• wireless
• diy
• ati
• notebook

[RetroPCDOS]

Try Hiren's Boot CD has a harddrive smart controller pasword resetter.

[CenTexVideo]

@RetroPCDOS Thanks for the info. I'll have to try that.

[RetroPCDOS]

Have a Toshiba A3X that I own since day one, and is now asking for a bios password that I never set. Found it to be a known issue with a bug in the bios, on some of those older Toshiba their a pad where the ram to reset the passwords as far as the harddrive not to sure how to clear the password.

[CenTexVideo]

@RetroPCDOS I've read that the BIOS is buggy. If this one still is, I'll have to fix it when I get the computer running again.

[naterade21]

blech vista

[CenTexVideo]

@Anito2000 It wouldn't hurt to try reflashing the BIOS so you're not stuck find another mainboard for it. These particular series of Toshiba computers were known for having bad BIOS. However, these mainboards are very sensitive and it doesn't take much to mess them up. The charging circuit doesn't work on mine anymore, so I can't use the battery. It only took a tap on the mouse pad to mess that up.

[CenTexVideo]

@Anito2000 It would appear that the BIOS is bad.