A few days ago I had to repair a notebook with symptoms that didn’t look like a hard drive failure at all. But the problem was fixed after I replace the hard drive.
It was Toshiba Satellite A70-S249 notebook with the following problem.
When I press on the power button, the laptop starts up as usual and a red Toshiba logo appears on the screen. After a moment the logo disappears and the screen turns black without any faint image and flashing cursor. The blue light around the power button stays on and fans continue to spin normal but nothing appears on the screen. I noticed that the hard drive LED blinks green on the startup and after that shows no activity at all. After a closer inspection I noticed that the screen is not completely black (like dead black), it didn’t have any image on it but it had a very faint backlight (I would say about 3-5% of normal brightness). I was able to see that there is some backlight after I pressed on the lid close switch and the screen turned to completely black.
Here are my troubleshooting steps that I went through to find the problem.
First of all, I replaced the memory module and didn’t get any changes. Removed the wireless card, still had the same problem.
After that I removed the hard drive and started the computer. This time I got something. The notebook successfully passed the Toshiba screen and started looking for a boot device. I got some activity on the screen. To make sure that the notebook itself works fine, I booted it from Knoppix (live Linux CD) and successfully loaded the Linux operating system to the desktop. So, that’s the hard drive problem!
I installed the hard drive back in the laptop and tried to boot it again. The same failure occurred again; I got a black screen with a very faint backlight and no hard drive activity at all. I tested the hard drive with Hitachi DFT test and failed an advanced test. The problem is detected!
Finally I installed a new hard drive, reimaged the drive with a recovery DVD and got the laptop back up and running.
By the way, even though the customer’s hard drive failed the DFT test, I still was able to access it from another computer. The customer had important personal files on the failed drive. I connected it to our recovery desktop computer using IDE adapter. The “failed” hard drive was detected without any problem and I was able to recover the data.
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October 11th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
recently iv been leaving my laptop on overnight etc when i came to use it yesterday a blue screen appeared asking boot sequence i think that dissapeared and now it starts up but just stays on a blank screen with a flashing dash (-) in the top left corner i need help!!!thanks
im desperate please email me if you can help
August 28th, 2007 at 8:07 pm
hi. i bought a toshiba a-100 last november. i recently kept getting bluescreens all the time. even picking up the computer resulted in a blue screen. i was thinking a corrupt hard drive or bad memory module. it was still under warranty so i brought it back and they took it for 2 weeks, got it back today, got home it worked fine for about and hour. then i started putting my programs back on and i got the blue screens again. and as before, it wont let me recovery my xp using the toshiba recovery discs. they put in a new hard drive so im assuming its the memory. it says im missing system32/hal.dll now. idunno i waited 2 weeks to get rid of the blue screens and now i have them all over again. email me if u can with any solutions!! thanks
June 3rd, 2007 at 10:17 am
J Brincau,
On some laptops you can adjust the brightness level in the BIOS. Check the BIOS settings. Enter the setup menu and see if you can increase brightness for the battery mode in there.
May 31st, 2007 at 12:30 am
If I do not plug the ac power supply to my computer i get a very dark screen, no difference if I try to improve brithness by contrast sequence buttons. Computor is very dark if I use on its battery.
May 13th, 2007 at 11:41 pm
Ashley,
If you purchased your Satellite M35X in the United States, you can get a free repair from Toshiba. They extended warranty for Satellite A70, A75, M30X and M35X notebooks. Call Toshiba and ask them about the extended warranty. Check out comments 94 and 95 in this thread. Good luck!
May 13th, 2007 at 4:36 pm
I think I might be having a similar problem.
Okay — so, my mom took the toshiba to use it for playing spider solitaire. (It’s sorta hers now, and that’s all she does.) Well, when I got home from work, she told me that the screen was blank and it wouldn’t shut off. Sometimes it doesn’t load properly, but if you force a shut down, it’ll restart just fine.
So, I went to restart it, but it was hotter than normal. So, I forced the shut down and restart it. The blue light on the power button came on and the fan started. Then it just stopped. Nothing. it never made it to any screen or anything. I don’t even think the back light even comes up.
May we be working with the same problem? Also, I was wondering if there is any way in bringing it back to life.
It’s a 2003/2004 (I honestly can’t remember) Toshiba M35X. Recently, I sent it under warranty to have the power jack fixed (with your instructions so the people won’t make it worse). Before that, the button that ejects the card on the right (name?) was replaced, and when the people who fixed it messed up the sound card, they replaced that. That’s all the work I had done on it.
All emails are appreciated. I’ll gladly help all that I can with anything. I know enough about computers to get by, but not a hellova lot.
March 1st, 2007 at 6:43 pm
Just an update on whats happened..
I decided to change the inverter as you wrote it can sometimes work fine and then not work. It looks like i’ve found the problem. Now that i recall, the screen was slightly flickering, very slightly before I changed the inverter and since now I have changed it I have noticed it doesn’t do that anymore.
Many thanks once again and I hope this information will help someone else..
Regards:
Eric
February 27th, 2007 at 6:38 pm
my laptop was working fine last night, when today it suddenly wasn’t working. it was working fine at first, the windows was starting, but after that, a dull gray color came on the screen. it looked like it was turned off, but it wasn’t since noise came out near the fan. then it turned off. and after a couple of seconds, it restarted. and repeated. can anyone help me fix this problem? i’m desperate!
February 22nd, 2007 at 9:59 am
thank you cj2006 for your reply and suggestion. I agree with you that the mouse was definitely not the problem : ) I think I now know why the system shuts down. Apparently I’m having probs with NVidia geoforce4 420 go which is making the system unstable. I have backed up my work any way. If any one knows about this problem please let me know what I should do next. Many thanks
Anna
February 19th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
Anna,
what mouse you are talking about? an external one? you dropped an external mouse and because of that the LCD went black?
That’s weird, I cannot see any relationship between these two.
Here’s a quick solution for getting your data back (I assume there is nothing wrong with the hard drive). Buy an external USB enclosure for notebook hard drives in any local computer store, some of them are just $15-30. Remove the hard drive from your notebook as it shown on the step 8 and install it inside the enclosure. You’ll have to remove a bracket from the hard drive before placing it inside the enclosure – not difficult, just remove two screws on both sides. Connect the enclosure to any other working computer via an USB port. If there is nothing wrong with the hard drive it should be detected automatically and you will be able to access and backup all your data.