Satellite 2800-S201 not responding

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

I obtained a surplus Toshiba Satellite 2800-S201 laptop from my son.
Out of curiosity I booted it up to see what was on it before I
formatted the drive for my application. It had a dual boot system with
Red Hat Linux and Windows 2000 both of which needed a password which I
did not have. I also booted with a DOS disk and looked at it with
fdisk to see how many partitions it had and what size the drive was.

Anyway I came back a few days later to format it and now it won't boot
at all. It turns on and I see a message to press F2 for the boot menu
but then I get a blank screen with just a flashing cursor and nothing
else happens. If I press F2, I do get the boot menu but nothing
happens no matter which option I choose. The menu just sits there
again with a flashing cursor. I have tried booting with both a
bootable floppy and a bootable CD but still nothing. The light for
each of the drives comes on momentarily during the device search but
then everything just stops.

Does anyone have any ideas or recommendations? All I really want to do
is set it up to run DOS for my CNC machine.

Thanks,

Bob

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

But in order to do any of these, I need to boot to something, correct?
I have a Windows 2000 repair disk and several other similar utilities
but I don't seem to be able to even boot to a floppy. The drive light
comes on for a few seconds - then nothing, just a flashing cursor on a
blank screen.

Any ideas? Not sure where to even start.

Bob

bobb wrote:
> U need to clean up (fix/reset) the boot sector.
>
> A NT boot floppy(ies) will have such capability.
>
> A low-level formating utility from the HD's manufacturer will do it.
>
> Partition Magic will do it.
>
> U may also find a shareware, but I don't have used any.

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Thanks but not sure how to get to BIOS. There appears to be no screen
message telling me which key to press to get there. Have tried several
different ones with no luck. I found a manual online that seems to say
to hold down esc while turning on computer but that does not appear to
work.

Any other ideas?

Thanks,

Bob

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Thanks, Barry,

I've tried holding down the esc key while booting but, no matter how
long I hold it down, I never get to the "Keyboard Error" message. Does
this mean that the motherboard is toast? Is there anything else I can
do or try?

Thanks,

Bob