Comments on: Portege 3505 laptop does not recognize external drive

By: Richard

Richard — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 14:33:40 +0000

hello,I have a toshiba portege 3500,it is complete but without a hdd,I replaced this,but the ext cd wont let me run the recovery disks.After releasing F12 and choosing cd drive,i get screen message insert recovery cd and press any button,again and again.the cd drive runs ok when the pc lead is dissconected,but as soon as the lead is inserted it goes dead,even if not connected to the computer.If you could help i would be most grateful,thanks Richard

By: Laptop Freak

Laptop Freak — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 05:55:16 +0000

Bob Booker,

A135-s2386. Vista. Won’t recognize USB devices. Using Bios V1.4. Wiped disk, loaded XP, smae problem. Reloaded Vista. Same problem. Toshiba, so called tech, says hardware. ??

Sounds like a problem with the system board. Apparently, the USB controller (integrated into the system board) is fried.

By: Bob Booker

Bob Booker — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 01:30:47 +0000

A135-s2386. Vista. Won’t recognize USB devices. Using Bios V1.4. Wiped disk, loaded XP, smae problem. Reloaded Vista. Same problem. Toshiba, so called tech, says hardware. ??

By: Mila

Mila — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 18:04:32 +0000

You mentioned on original answer that you can ” Connect the external DVD drive to the laptop through the PC card slot”. How to do that?
I have old dell inspiron 8100. the dvd drive just won’t read a thing, so when the hard drive failed – I re-install XP by connecting the hard drive to my desktop. Then, when I put the hard drive back into the laptop it just hang at mup.sys (googled that and suspect that it keeps hanging because XP was installed on the desktop instead on the laptop — different specs, etc). So, when you mentioned that we can connect the external DVD drive to the laptop through the PC card slot — I thought I can use that to re-install XP again on the laptop using my desktop internal dvd drive.
Please help — Thanks!

By: Don

Don — Fri, 23 May 2008 19:08:35 +0000

I’m having a problem similar to the original poster, I recently had to replace the internal DVD-RAM drive in my Toshiba Satellite M45 S355. I replaced it with an Optiarc drive (Model number: AD-7540A) that I got from a Sony external slim drive, but now I can’t boot from the internal drive. Is there anything I can do about this?

Thanks in advance,
Don

By: Laptop Freak

Laptop Freak — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 20:15:32 +0000

Shaun,
You can call Toshiba and purchase the recovery disc from them. It shouldn’t be very expensive. One of my customer was able to get it for about $40.

By: shaun

shaun — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 08:19:51 +0000

sorry i need to ask a question i didnt no where else to post this i need help bad some please
i made a big mistake i have a toshiba tecra a3 laptop i formated the hard drive before realising i didnt get a recovery cd with my laptop when i bought it
therefore i didnt create a recovery disk now im stuck i need a recovery disk and i dont no how to get one is there any way i can get one from someone or download one or something or is that illeagal??
I NEED HELP PLEASE

By: hungou

hungou — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 04:27:12 +0000

Thank you very much for reply!