Non-Thinkpad help

[DrThinkpad]

Hi everyone,

Well I just got an old laptop (Toshiba Satellite 3000) for FREE. The previous owner has no idea if it worked. Hard Drive is missing, and when I plug the AC adapter, it powers on, CD-RW spins, lights are blinking, and then nothing. Is that normal ? Should it still be able to boot into BIOS without an hard drive ? Thanks in advance for your input, and please excuse my poor English.

[jdhurst]

Before you spend any money, obtain a bootable CD. In this case, Knoppix is probably best as there is no drive to worry about. If you can make, or a friend can make, a Bart's PE CD (Bootable Windows) so much the better as you will have use for it down the road.

But Knoppix will work here and tell you if the machine is functioning. Let the machine run (if it starts) for two or three hours. See if it runs that long, if it overheats, and so on. See if it runs fast or slow. Running slow on bootable Knoppix means it won't run much in the way of a modern system.
... JDH

[georgelam]

Have you checked if the laptop has any RAM in it? If not, then it will definitely not boot into BIOS.

[DrThinkpad]

There is 512mb of RAM in it. It can't even go into BIOS, the screen never lights up, it shuts down almost immediatly.

[jdhurst]

Perhaps the CPU is overheating - dried up paste, bad CPU, bad motherboard, no fan. Those are the things I would check. ... JDH

[NorrisCell]

There is 512mb of RAM in it. It can't even go into BIOS, the screen never lights up, it shuts down almost immediatly.

Even without a HD, it should be able to boot to BIOS. If it does nothing, it could be faulty RAM too. Any error beeps?

Follow JDHurst's advice and put together a bootable OS. D*mnSmallLinux is another good one that will run from a small USB drive.

Can't link it because of the forum filter. Replace the * with an A.
www.d*mnsmalllinux.org