Equium A300D - possibly my HDD died

I bought my Equium A300D (I think that's the correct model anyway) from PC World in September last year after my old laptop died on me (fried hard drive due to the processor cooling fan breaking).
The old laptop, had been making some strange whirring/screeching noises at times for a number of months, but I'd rather foolishly ignored it thinking it was just a fan that wasn't balanced quite right or something - in hindsight not a good decision to take!
My Equium's been fine until I switched it on this morning, and found it was making the familiar horrible screeching/whirring sound, and I switched it off again rather quickly.
The screeching kicked in almost immediately after I'd switched it on. Three times I've tried to switch it back on, with the same result, and understandably I'm very concerned about it and didn't want to risk leaving it switched on for fear of causing any more damage.
Ill computers are never good news at the best of times, but particularly not at the moment as I'm part way through filling in a rather long and complex form that I have to have ready by Wednesday. I'm completely it on a saveable pdf version of the form which has taken me about three weeks to complete to where I'd got up to last night, and though I use an online backup service, I can't restore files to another computer without overwriting whatever's there already, so I'm panicking somewhat. (Also, my Equium's got a Vista OS, and my desktop I'm currently on is still on XP).
Three questions:
1) Does a whirring/screeching sound as soon as it's switched on sound like it could be another dying hard drive?
2) Would taking it to my local independent computer shop (who usually tend to be able to do minor repairs and put in new drives while you wait) rather than PC World invalidate the warranty?
I'm just not sure what to do for the best, as whatever I do I need to do it quickly, because I haven't long until I have to have finished this form (and although I have the online backup, rather foolishly I don't have an external backup of it), and even if I can get the Equium fixed quickly if it is the hard drive, it takes a number of days to download and restore files from the online backup, which is time I don't have at the moment.
Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks for the response. That was what was worrying me, as my last laptop did exactly the same before it died last year. With that one it turned out the strange noises I'd been getting for months (and had ignored) was a faulty fan, which eventually went completely and overheated the HDD. Fortunately as I had the online backup I was able to restore all my data to this new one, though it did take about a week, as the speed you can restore at's limited by the speed of your broadband connection, and I did have around 25GB to restore!
I ended up taking this one to PC World on Saturday morning, where I bought it from, who said they couldn't deal with laptops in-store as they weren't trained in laptops, and that I'd have to contact Toshiba, which with my deadline looming really wasn't an option. The guy in the shop rather unhelpfully advised that I didn't have to do anything straight away and that I could try just using it for half an hour at a time and then switching off for a while and it might be okay if I did that... * rolls eyes *
In the end I took it to my local computer shop who said they could have a look at it within the hour (this was about 12.30 on Saturday) and depending on what the problem was and whether they'd got any parts needed in stock, they should be able to sort it out before they closed that evening.
It turned out that the vents on the underside of it were clogged (I'd been using it just on my lap, and they said it was probably a combination of bits of fluff and fibres from fabrics and dust - I'm now using a lapdesk!) which was unbalancing one of the cooling fans. They cleaned it all out and blew out all the vents with compressed air, and I picked it up again at 3pm. :)
All's working fine now and no more noisy fan (and the HDD's fine), and it was worth paying the small amount to get it all cleaned out to get it sorted the same day. Hopefully now I should still meet my Wednesday deadline, though I have now put the work on a memory stick as well as having my online backup!

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Equium A300D-16c battery has died

I purchased this laptop about 3 years ago and the battery has recently died. I tried to replace it with a non Toshiba battery that fitted the part number. This battery appeared not to work.
When I put the part in and charged it up the laptop would state that there was no battery and the battery light would flash.
However when i unplugged it the laptop would run off the battery but the laptop would still say it did not exist.
I assumed that this battery was faulty so returned it and bought a Toshiba battery which is made by Toshiba and is the same battery as my old one.
It is defiantly the same part number as my old battery however it has the same problem as the previous battery.
I updated the BIOS system when I purchased the first laptop battery so I do not think its that.
I also downloaded another battery reader programme called "Battery Care" but this also says that the battery does not exist even when I unplug and run the laptop off said battery.
The original battery that came with the laptop on purchase is still recognised but only holds charge for around 15 minutes due to age.
Does anyone have any ideas?
Thanks

Hi again
I replied earlier but for some reason it was not sent and I didnt find out until now.
Anyway what I meant was that he wanted me to use the new battery normally as in run the laptop off the battery without the ac adapter being attached. Even though the laptop would maintain that the battery was not there.
I have done this for a couple of hours before when I first got the battery and was trying to get the laptop to register its presence.
I am just worried that if I keep using the battery like that it would become a safety issue.
As the battery does work on its own and runs the computer fine its just that the laptop says there is no battery.

Is it possible to disable the webcam toolbar on the Equium A300D

Is it possible to disable the webcam toolbar on the Equium A300D at all? (i.e. just access the webcam controls from the control panel or start menu orsomething).
Where the toolbar is on the left of the screen it's extremely annoying, as every time my mouse strays to the left of the screen, up pops the toolbar.
On a couple of apps I use there are docked app controls on the left of the screen, and when the toolbar pops out, covering half of them up, I have to wait for the toolbar to disappear again, which can be extremely annoying if I'm rushing to do something.
Is there any way to disable it from appearing?

Yes, you can disable the webcam software from automatic loading.
In RUN type *msconfig* and start this tool.
There you will see the tab called Startup. Go to this tab and disable the webcam software (remove the mark).
Then apply the changes and reboot the notebook.
Now the Windows should boot up without the webcam software.
Bye

Equium A300D will not boot.

My Equium A300D won't boot. It just displays that "file is possibly corrupt. File header checksum does not match the computed checksum". Why? What can I do? I only have it a few months.

Have you installed new RAM lately? Its important to test the RAM before using it. Or perhaps the standard RAM is faulty.
Go to www.memtest.org and run Memtest for a few passes (its a bootable CD).
The file system could be corrupted, try running CHKDSK from the Recovery Console. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314058
The HDD could be faulty, Hitachi DFT is a good HDD tester. Run the Advanced test to check for bad sectors.

Equium A300D-16C - Switches itself off after 3 seconds

I have a Toshiba Equium A300D-16C that will not start up. When you switch it on it begins to start but within 3 seconds switches itself off before it even gets to any type of screen. It then automatically tries to switch on again, then repeats the same cycle of auto off, auto on over and over.
When you put your ear to the bottom of the laptop you can hear the system starting up then you get two very quiet beeps before it switches itself off. Does anyone know what the cause could be or if there is a fix or should i just accept that my laptop of just under two years has died and given up the ghost?
Thanks in advance for any feedback.

> How much would i be looking at to replace cpu/motherboard (not beign a tech wizard in the slightest)
I don't know exactly what is wrong with it as it should be tested before making any conclusion. But the most possible reason is the motherboard - southbridge or power circuit controller. If it's motherboard issue, you will have to pay pretty good money :( as the most expensive part of your laptop. (about 35$-40% from total new laptop price). Don't know even if it's worthy to replace it due to high price. But before, you should contact the Asp (service center):
http://eu.computers.toshiba-europe.com/innovation/generic/ASP_SUPPORT/
Ask them what really happened to it and make decision, then, replace or not.

Equium A300D: Camera Software shows last picture I took 6 months ago

Hi,
Just started using the built in camera on my Equium A300D after a long break (6 months). The software seems to run fine I can see whatever, is in front of the camera in preview and all seems right. However, when I press the snapshot button it shows the last picture I took 6 months ago. The video function works fine!
I have uninstalled the software and installed the latest version but the problem remains.
Any ideas?
Ron

Hi
Sorry but I really dont understand your problem.
The cam shows the last picture which your took several month ago. And????
It this a problem????
I mean the picture has been saved up in the folder somewhere on the HDD and therefore you can see the pictures I assume the pictures have not been deleted and therefore they are still available.
This is not a problem buddy. Take a look in the webcam folder and deleted the pictures easy. Isnt it???

New battery isn't detected on Equium A300D-16C

Hi,
This is my first post on the site. I have an issue with a new battery on my Equium A300D-16C. (no battery detected)
The original one that I had for the computer died after two years of use so I had to order a new one as a replacement. I have received it and it itself works fine, giving me 90 minutes charge. But the problem is that it isnt detected by the computer when I click on the power icon on the bottom bar of screen, so I dont know how long I have left with it. Also, the orange light that indicates it is charging should go white upon it being full of charge, mine just starts flashing orange after a while (is this when it is fully charged?).
I took the mains out of my computer a few minutes ago and it cut out and I had to switch it back on again, despite the battery being in and it being full of charge (as it has been in all day and the mains have been in for decent length periods).
What can I do to solve this?
Worth mentioning I am not too good with computers so everything might be best explained really, really simply as I am not the cleverest when it comes to this area.
thanks

> Now when i take the mains power out, the computer cuts out and shuts off within minutes without it being able to be turned back on
Seems the battery is empty and therefore notebook shuts down when AC adaptor has been disconnected.
There are two possibilities:
Either the new battery is faulty or there is something wrong with motherboard power supply electronic.
I think both should be checked.

My Equium A300D freezes at BIOS

Anyone help with this one?
My Equium A300d originally froze at the Bios splash screen.I eventually replaced both the ram and hdd but still the same problem. By trial and error i discovered that the problem was the dvd drive.......remove it and the system loads fine, put it back in and back to the freeze at bios!
I replaced the dvd drive wiith a new compatible drive but same result so assume the actual hardware is not the problem so can only assume a motherboard problem?
Anyone come across this scenario? thanks for looking.

Hi - thanks for your response.
The Bios is Phoenix V2.10
OS is Windows XP
Your understanding is correct....without the dvd drive in,XP loads fine.
If i then put in the dvd drive nothing happens....no spinning of the drive, no drive light flashing, no system messages.
I don't think its a driver problem as the dvd drive should be picked up using the generic windows driver anyway.Still suspect some sort of power problem on the mobo-but just for the dvd?..... hope not as i'm u/s with mobo's!

Equium A300D-16C - display not working

My girlfriend has an Equium A300D-16C which has been having a few problems lately.
For the past few months, whenever she turns the system on, the display doesn't fire up and it takes several attempts for it to come on.
The strange thing is whenever this happens the system does still boot normally as you can hear the Windows 7 start up sound.
I have been looking into this issue for quite some time now and I'm starting to run out of ideas.
Originally I thought it could've been a cabling issue but upon stripping the laptop down I found the cable was still firmly in place.
I have also tried removing the RAM, HDD and DVD drive but it still doesn't fire up. On the odd occasion it has started up when doing this but upon rebooting it hasn't started again.
I am thinking this could be either a power issue or the motherboard is on its way out. This problem is gradually getting worse (it took over 20 attempts turning it on and off this morning) so eventually it won't come on at all.
To clarify, the system will boot after many attempts but most of the time the display will not turn on (not even the backlight). It does work with an external display on the HDMI so the GPU is working.
I have tried holding the power button with no power source to discharge the system but it doesn't help.
I have also noticed that if you hear it boot and close the lid, upon reopening the lid the display will come on but with the wrong resolution (1024x768) which just puzzles me even more.
Any ideas on what could be wrong? I would rather repair this than just buy a new one as its still a decent system apart from this problem.

It is always problematic to discuss about problems that happen from time to time. Ok in your case most of the time it doesn't work but when it works there is connection between display and mainboard.
On this virtual way we can just speculate what the problem can be. Maybe connection to the mainboard, maybe display controller, display cable, display connector. Who knows?
If there is no even backlight I presume display doesnt get the video signal at all. It must be something on mainboard side.
What you can do? You can contact nearest service and ask for help but if they will say that mainboard must be exchanged it will be pretty expensive. You can try to find similar model on ebay with broken display or some other hardware failure (not mainboard) and exchange the mainboard.
It is really not easy to say what can be done.

Equium A300D-13x stucks on installation screen

I recently sent my laptop (Equium A300D-13x) back to Toshiba to be repaired as it was overheating and cutting out.
It came back today and when I turned it on I got the screen where I was asked if I wanted to go into safe mode or start Windows normally.
Then it goes to a screen where it says, *Finishing the installation may take several minutes.
Please do not interrupt or shutdown the computer!*
I've been waiting all day now and I'm still stuck on this screen.
Has anyone had the same problem? And if so, how can I fix it?

Hi
Ive recovered my notebook many times and the installation went always troublefree.
But of course such installation issue could happen always and I think you should simply repeat this procedure.
If you dont have Toshiba Recovery disk then try to recover the notebook using the HDD recovery option.
Just press F8 while notebook powering up.
Then choose Repair my computer. Then a new window will appear and you could select the new option called Toshiba HDD.
Check it out!

Equium A300d-13x - Media buttons suddenly stoped working

I am using an Equium A300d-13x toshiba laptop and the led media control touch panel suddenly stoped working
What shuld i do?

Hi
Did you install some 3rd party tools like Virtual Machine or Virtual PC or similar?
Such tools affect the multimedia buttons and could disable the functionality!
Otherwise there is something wrong with the operating system.
Possibly some registry keys or files are wrong, damage, etc
You could try to clean the OS using CCLeaner before you would install the VAP again.
This should be tried out.

Equium A300D-16C - Windows has failed to start

I have a Toshiba Equium A300D-16C and all of a sudden it starts up and goes onto windows boot manager and says that Windows has failed to start and it wont let me do anything else.
I really dont know what to do and all my uni work is on it.
It says to put the windows installation disk but its not responding to any disks what so ever.
If anyone could help Id be grateful
Thanks

hi Lashay
guessing you have xp on this unit try to reinstall bootfiles.
seems that windows has lost some files...
this could be software or a hardware issue...
"fixboot " and "fixmbr" on recovery console should do this job.
safest way is to get a new hdd and a hdd-usb-adapter!
install operating system on the new hdd,
then connect the old hdd using the usb-adapter to the new system and transfer all user files.
not the system files or maybe you will get the same trouble again!
if there is a serious problem on the hdd its getting worse with every attemp to read the disk...

Equium A300D-16C turns on but the screen shows nothing/stays black

Hi there, I have a Toshiba Equium A300D-16C laptop.
It was fine until now...
When I press the power button, my laptop turns on but the screen remains black / off.
HDD indicator doesn't flash or anything ... ( in case this helps )
I've also tried to remove the battery, hold the power button for 30s and plug the power cord back in... Same thing laptop turns on but screen is black.
I tried to connect my laptop to my PC's monitor using HDMI cable but no success... Laptop turned on but my pc's monitor was showing nothing.
I haven't changed anything inside my laptop or unscrewed it.
PS:
I quite often kept my laptop on the bed/pillow so it may have something to do with overheating or something.
How did I get to this point:
Yesterday my laptop was fine, there was nothing wrong with it... I switched it off at night but when I tried to switch it back on this morning that's where I faced this problem.
Any help would be appreciated.
Many thanks,
Rejanu.

Hello
> I tried to connect my laptop to my PC's monitor using HDMI cable but no success... Laptop turned on but my pc's monitor was showing nothing.
Its very good that you have this test with an external monitor because so you could make sure its not related to internal monitor and its working properly.
Well, you have tried a lot so my personal opinion is its a serious hardware malfunction It could be related to mainboard or CPU in my opinion
I think such hardware diagnostic can only be done from an authorized service provider. I think you should contact the guys. They can help you to get rid of this problem :)

Windows installation interrupted as Equium A300D shuts down by itself

Dear all,
I have had my Toshiba Equium A300D for 2 years now. During this time, it works normally, occasionally shuts down by itself maye because it was too hot.
Recently, it tried to install updates from Windows but never successful. I left the computer to update for the whole night and it was still 2 out of 12 updates ... all the time so I always had to shut the computer down by pressing the power key.
I was unable to change the setting to update Windows automatically because everytime I tried to do that it froze. Most other commands became nonresponsive even viewing pictures.
It was until my computer was unable to connect to a certain wireless network while other devices can that I decided to reinstall Windows completely. It was installing normally but it got too hot and the computer shuts itself again!!!
I tried to install again and it shut itself down again, but I got into the final stage of set up so when I turned it on again, it was still "finihing the installation may take several mins. lease do not interrupt or shut down the computer". I left it on for several hours but it didnt move to any different stage. Before the computer shuts itself down I think I got to the stage after this.
I tried to press F8 to begin a new installation but it only got into this screen.
What can I do?
Please help me! Thank you a lot in advance!
I am in Germany at the moment but I live and bought this computer from the UK.
ttd500

I accidentally threw away my Toshiba box without checking what was inside when I moved out last year and I wasnt sure if there was any disk so I dont have the Toshiba Recovery disk.
I was installing using Toshiba Recovery inside the laptop, not with an external Windows disk.
Can I download it somewhere on the Toshiba website?
Message was edited by: ttd500

Equium A300D laptop completly shutsdown at random times

Equium A300D laptop completly shutsdown at random times
It could be overheating.
It really cant cope when trying to restore i-phone - i have been unable to do this as the laptop doesn't stay on long enough
Playing and / or burning various media is also a problem
Any thoughts on how to fix would be appreciated

Hi pedrofreeman,
Yes, it could be really an overheating issue. The reason of overheating would be shutdown itself to protect the hardware.
So first of all you should clean your notebook using compressed air spray. This can blow out the dust from cooling ventilators and after this the notebook will run much cooler. You can follow the instructions here:
[How to clean the cooling system of a Toshiba notebook?|http://forums.computers.toshiba-europe.com/forums/ann.jspa?annID=40]
For example use my notebook every day pretty often and also for work. So I clean the unit every 3 months and really a lot of dust comes out. So its really useful doing this. ;)

Equium A300D - possibly my HDD died

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