Toshiba M45-S355 Unable to Restart

[Matt1127]

I recently acquired a Toshiba Satellite M45-S355. It was actually given to my wife so I have taken on the project of trying to get it running. It also came with an external hard drive. When I originally tried to boot up the computer all I got was the Toshiba logo screen and I would occasionally get an error message that said PXE-E61 Media Test Failure Check Cable. After asking a few questions of a friend I checked the hard drive. Turns out there was no hard drive at all. I took the external drive that my wife had been given with the computer and opened it up. It was the exact same model of hard drive that had originally came with the M45-S355. I installed the hard drive into the lap top and it worked perfectly except for one flaw. I still get the same error message mentioned above and then the computer loads up properly. Once you try to shut down or restart the computer it will not reboot for approximately one hour. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Matt

[BlackFetus]

..hi there!..did you check the hard disk if it is in master pinning and did you try to change/replace the IDE controller of your hard disk?..if the issue still continues then try to clean your memory for better performance..nor, just try to reset the BIOS or CMOS battery of your laptop..^_^..i hope it helps!..^_^..

[Matt1127]

Thanks so much for your reply. You will have to forgive me I am somewhat of amateur at this. I will do my best to check into these issues.

[Matt1127]

As I dig into this I am afraid I am coming up with more questions than answers. I was talking to a friend and he suggested that what I had thought was a new external hard drive was actually the original hard drive just dropped into a case and set up like an external drive temporarily. In other words do you think it is possible that I am still dealing with a bad hard drive? Also if the computer clock is losing time is that sign that this BIOS or CMOS battery you mentioned above could be bad? Thanks so much.

Matt

[Matt1127]

Ok here is an update on my situation. I took the Toshiba M45 apart intending to change the cmos battery. Turns out it is spot welded into a little case and the case is soldered to the motherboard. I checked the battery with a multimeter and it showed the right voltage. After I reassembled the Toshiba M45 I checked the bios settings. The boot order was wrong so I reset it to the default. Unfortunately after all this I am still having the same problem I had to begin with. BlackFetus could you explain what you meant about the HD master pinning. As I said earlier I am kind of new at this. Thanks so much for your help. Any other ideas would be great. Thanks,

Matt

[BlackFetus]

..hi there!..try to use your external hard drive for your hard disk, boot it first in the BIOS settings..i think your IDE controller of your laptop is damage..just try it!..give me an update!..^_^..