laptop Dead as a dodo or can it be recovered???

[zoepiglet]

Hi i have a toshiba satelite L20 laptop

recently it refused to start up so i had the tech guys look at it. they replaced pretty much everything bar the hdd and ram by looks of it.

the past week it has been freezing, nothing worked, alt+ctrl+del, escape etc etc...........only turning it off and re-starting worked.

someone on another forum told me to update drivers so i ahve doen that. I went to the toshiba website and downloaded all the updates and patches etc for this machine.

in the middle of installing the bios updates the damn thing tunred itself off and now wont turn on again!!! if teh bios were only partially updated woudl this cause the problem???? is there anyway to start the comp to complete the process??????? i'm guessing that since it wont start then i cant continue the process!

when you turn it on all the lights come on bar the hdd! screen shows nothing, windows doesnt start but i know the fan is still working cos you can hear it!

any ideas????? or is it time for the repair guys to instal new boards or something?????

thanks in advance

Zoe

[wing987]

Well, now that I read this post I have more information. The BIOS update WOULD cause the issue if it was not completed. I recommend you take it to a tech. For a decent price best buy has the geek squad, but they are not "experts." I have never encountered a problem like this one, but I do not think it is un-recoverable. Just a ain in the butt to do so. From the problems it was having before you ran into this one......yes it may have needed updates. Get the BIOS fixed and you should be able to continue on your merry way, finish updating, and be happy with your comuter. At least until it messes up again.....

[zoepiglet]

LOL thanks................i like the till it messes up again!!

will take it back to the techs who do it under warrnaty i guess..... am pretty sure they replace the power board and mother board just a month or so again so am guessing maybe they never updated drivers or something. Such a pain cos they take forever to do anything!

Thanks again

[joytech22]

you know, if your laptop has a floppy drive, you could place a copy of the BIOS you were trying to flash onto the floppy (make shure it is a cab or something) then stick it into laptop, then try to boot it

or stick the disk that came with the laptop into the drive and see if it recovers.

[zoepiglet]

doesnt have floppy but it actually started up ok this morning!!!

have yet to try it since getting home from work but fingers crossed!!

any ideas how i can find out why it was freezing in the first place and if its drivers i need which ones and how???

previously the screen, mouse and keyboard would freeze, only thing that worked was the on off button!! but it seemed to still be doing stuff cos the lights were still flashing to show the hdd was working!

Dont want to stuff it up again!!!

should i redo the bios update since it died half way through or leave alone???

can you guess i'm a blonde???

[bigozone]

if you do attempt to update the BIOS again... besure to have the laptop connected to the AC power,, and make sure the battery is at full charge before starting....

and by no means should you ever unplug, turnoff,, or try to stop a BIOS update once it has started.... if it's under warranty, you can always tell the manufacturer that the PC froze in the middle of the BIOS update and will not continue... then ask them what you should do.... they will then schedual the laptop for repair...

and never tell them you pulled the plug, or reset it durring the BIOS update,, that gives them reason to blame you and justification to refuse to cover it under warranty

later,
bigO