Laptop Problems

[wes4dbt]

I been trying to fix my daughters Toshiba XP laptop with not much sucess. The DVD/CD drive will reconize a CD but not a DVD. It say to "insert a disk". The sound system has also quit working, not even system sounds. I have ran an AVG scan on it and there is no virus.

I've check the device manager and it shows not problems.
It says these devices are working properly.
It says they are enabled.
It says I have the best driver installed.

I don't know if it's broken or needs to be reconfigured. I've went through all the troubleshooting tools that Windows and Tosihba offers.

Is there a diagnostic tool I can use to check if it's broke or there's some other problem.

Thanks for any help.

[JuggaloBrotha]

It might be that the dvd laser (dvd drives have two lasers in them, one for cds and one for dvds) is bad which is why it still reads cds just fine.

This is probably a moot question, but does the dvd in question work in a dvd drive on another computer? Have you tried a different dvd in the "bad" drive?

[wes4dbt]

JB,

Thanks for the reply, I've tried several DVDs. Any ideas on why the computers speakers quit working or how to diagnose the problem?

[Nightwalker83]

Not sure if this will help but try Driver Detective in case there is a problem with the drivers.

[Siddharth Rout]

Hi wes4dbt, Though the laptop is showing that the drivers are ok but they are incompatible. It has happened to me in the past. Did you by any chance update the drivers?

[wes4dbt]

Nightwalker83, I downloaded the scanner and will try it later, my daughter is using the computer at this time.

Koolsid, I don't think my daughter did but who knows. I tried updating the driver but it said I had the best driver already installed. I don't know how to check if it is indead the correct driver. But I don't get any compatiblity errors.

I tried doing a system restore but they all fail.

Thanks for the replies, I appreciate it.

[Siddharth Rout]

ok... Do you have the original drivers? We will take it from there...

[gep13]

Another question, as this might come up later, do you have the original installation media for the OS, or is that on a system partition? Depending on how badly things turn out, or how corrupted things are, it might be easier just to do a fresh install.

Gary

[Pradeep1210]

Click Start > Run
In the Run box, type:
SFC /PURGECACHE and hit enter.
Then type:
SFC /SCANNOW and hit enter.

It will scan for corrupted system files and fix them if necessary. Keep your windows CD handy, just in case it needs to restore some system files.

[wes4dbt]

Koolsid, gep13,

I have the Recovery Disk, but since the DVD isn't working, I can't use it. Believe me, I keep trying it.

Pradeep1210, I'll try that when she gets home tonight.

Thanks for all the replies, it keeps my hopes up.

[Siddharth Rout]

Do you have access to a friends laptop/pc?

[JuggaloBrotha]

Do you have (or know anyone who has) a usb dvd drive?

[gep13]

Hey,

The above questions are geared, if I am right, to creating a bootable USB drive that will do the work of installing windows.

Have a look here for more information:

http://www.builderau.com.au/video/so...461484p,00.htm

Hope that helps!!

Gary

[wes4dbt]

I have,

Koolsid,
Windows 7 64bit laptop
Windows Vista 32 bit desktop
Windows XP desktop

gep13, I viewed the link. It's good info but I'm not having any problems booting up.

JB, No I don't have access to a usb DVD drive. I thought about buying one but I'm affair it might just be a wait of money if the laptop is broken.

Again, Thanks for the replies.

[wes4dbt]

Pradeep1210,

Ran the utility, it said there were unrecognised files and it asked for the Windows CD. It didn't come with Windows CD, only a recovery DVD.

I guess I'll try searching the Toshiba web site for downloadable drivers. I couldn't find it the first time I looked.

Thanks for the suggestion, that a good utility to know about.

[Siddharth Rout]

I have,

Koolsid,
Windows 7 64bit laptop
Windows Vista 32 bit desktop
Windows XP desktop

gep13, I viewed the link. It's good info but I'm not having any problems booting up.

JB, No I don't have access to a usb DVD drive. I thought about buying one but I'm affair it might just be a wait of money if the laptop is broken.

Again, Thanks for the replies.

Fine. Now all that you need is a pen drive. All you need to do is copy the data from the backup DVD into a pendrive using any of the above system which has a DVD drive, and copy it back to your laptop and simply run it....

[gep13]

gep13, I viewed the link. It's good info but I'm not having any problems booting up.

My suggestion here was if you decide to completely reinstall your laptop, you will need the installation files on a flash drive. The link that I provided will provide you with a method to create this drive, allowing you to reinstall the OS.

Gary

[Pradeep1210]

Pradeep1210,

Ran the utility, it said there were unrecognised files and it asked for the Windows CD. It didn't come with Windows CD, only a recovery DVD.

I guess I'll try searching the Toshiba web site for downloadable drivers. I couldn't find it the first time I looked.

Thanks for the suggestion, that a good utility to know about.

hmm.. and your dvd is not accessible. So that's a big problem.
Many recovery disks create a folder named i386 for problems like this one. So have you tried looking for a folder named i386 on any of your hard-disk drives? If you find one, just make the SFC utility pick files from there.