Need PC help

[Plaidfish]

Okay, Here's the situation....
I lost my job this week, I have my personal laptop but I want to reformat it....I try to use the trusty old Esc key to get to the Bios and it doesn't work like I remember it doing a year ago....the IT dept at my former job set it up for me and I think htey changed the BIOS to not boot from hte CD drive first.....Can anyone please help me w/ getting into the BIOS on a toshiba satellite laptop....bustedgears was helping me last nite but I think i was a lil tee many martoonis to the wind (actually jager).....Now I tried to just put the XP Pro CD in and it won't just over write teh current version because It's newer (the installed version).....so I htink there is some rights that are limiting me from doing things......I have admin rights on the machine but don't know where to go and change them....sort of....I think the machine was configured in their work domain and doesn't seem to want to change Admin rights unless it's on the network at teh office.....anyone familiar w/ rights and privileges on XP workstations???
I really need some serious IT help on this....leave PM w/ your number if you are familiar w/ what I'm talking about......Busted and Beason, If you guys are available I can call ya.....just PM and let me know if this clears any of the issues I have up......
Thanks
Eric

 

[Monkey Wrench]

Plaid, when you turn it on, as it's booting, start hitting F2. You should then get the option of getting into the BIOS.

 

[Revo Rancher]

I was just going to suggest that, but use F5. I was guessing, though. F2 sounds about right as well.

Plaid, what happened? Were you on the Lacrosse team or something?


onder2:

 

[Monkey Wrench]

Plaid, what happened? Were you on the Lacrosse team or something?

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!! Now that is funny!

 

[Tweak]

F2, F5, F8 or F9 could possibly do the trick. Depending on the manner of startup you may have to get to the login screen and then figure our way into safe mode from there (usually only on networs with a lot of security)

Another good trick to know is, if you a running Windowz XP, insert ANY previos version of windows and install from that CD. it does not matter what CD you use, because as soon as you do that you are going to boot up and reinstall windows XP over hte older version. It is just a handy way of circumnavigating the version conflict with XP. Also, you may just try to "repair" the windows file system from your current XP CD. There just might be a deleted .ini or .exe needed for the boot process and windows can locate it for you.

 

[Plaidfish]

Yeah I'm not having any luck w/ any F keys.....when I try to install from teh CD it says I can't because the current version of windows is newer than the CD......
Revo, Lets just say I got my first lesson in Corporate "clique" favoritism......and I wouldn't trust my previous supervisor as far as I could blow his off his feet w/ a shotgun.....I got setup to be the scapegoat on a project and I walked right into it trusting the wrong people.....oh well...live and learn.....I'll take some time off and look for something new.......

 

[Revo Rancher]

I would check into the labor laws, and if the states you were in have it, the FEHA regs, for both states. (Unless it was an outright company layoff under the proper circumstances)

 

[Tweak]

Speaking of, I have a friend in the over the road transport industry that I feel is getting the short end of the ugly stick (No breaks, no workmans comp, no benifits and no extra wages during overtime hours, in Texas) anyone know where I might did up somee info on the laws pertaining to trucking?

 

[Plaidfish]

when I hit esc I get another prompt to hit F1 for more choices to start in safe mode, safe mode w/ networking, and all that....but no option to enter the BIOS...this is soooo pissing me off because I did this just 9 months ago and don't remember it being difficult.....maybe there's a place in the user accounts that is locking me out from loading older versions??? ANYONE here deal w/ assigning domain rights and setting up secure networks would be a HUGE help here.....

Revo, No thanks, I'm done w/ them...one of hte owners has already asked me back and I just think it's time for a change.....they want to be a very corporate office and I just do not fit that mold at all......there's more to it than I'm saying here, but it's just a bad scenario and since they are basically my refference AND my only experience I can list in this field I figure I should just not make waves til I get my foot in another door....which I'm sure i'll be able to do soon.....right now I just need a friggin PC online so I can research some poop during the day......my desktop crapped out het day I came home from being let go.....hardware issue it seems.....

 

[Revo Rancher]

Plaid, take control over it then, I am sure you will land on your feet.

Speaking of, I have a friend in the over the road transport industry that I feel is getting the short end of the ugly stick (No breaks, no workmans comp, no benifits and no extra wages during overtime hours, in Texas) anyone know where I might did up somee info on the laws pertaining to trucking?

This wouldn't happen to be "Swift Trucking", would it?

 

[HeartBreak]

Plaid, (from google, search term "toshiba satellite bios") try holding F12 while powering on the laptop. This should show the boot selection menu. From this, select the CD/DVD drive with the windows setup cd in it. It should boot the disc.

As for windows saying that you cannot reinstall, you need to FORMAT/REPARTITION the drive. This, however, leads to total data loss (unless you back your data up). You have to do this from a booting with the CD, and not from the setup under windows.

 

[cvec7]

Toshiba laptops have a master reset button on the bottom somewhere I think. It may only restart the computer, or it might reset the Bios. I'm not sure, I've never tried.

 

[mr_bob]

plaid there are many ways to enter bios the most common are esc delete f2 sometimes f1 i would try the delete key thou

do u have a floppy dirve

if you do you can reformat with fdisk and then work from there and install any version of anything

 

[WoodiE]

Plaid,

You need to be pressing the F2 key or try pressing the DEL key - I don't think I've ever seen a BIOS key being the ESC key, more times then not the ESC key will remove the company splash logo at startup so you can see the computer detecting all the drives and memory.

F2

or

DEL



-Michael

 

[mcvickj]

I have come across some that use the ESC key. Usually F1, F2 or Del key. From a quick Google search it looks like Toshiba uses F1 but you mentioned you tried F1 and it didn't work.

As soon as you turn on the computer start pressing the button. A lot of times it is just a timing issue.

 

[Plaidfish]

thanks for the answers guys....unfortunately none of this is working....I'm no IT guy but I do know alot more than the avg joe user.....this is seriously pissing me off because I'm sure the IT guys did something w/ the rights to limit anyone from messing w/ this laptop...I have a feeling they configured it just like the tech stations they provide and now since I can't log onto the company domain it won't let me change the admin password to what I want and it won't let me reformat...even logged on as a local administrator...the admin pasword will let me log onto the CYRUSTECH domain even w/o being connected to the network....BUT I can't log onto tthe local machine as admin because I've been dicking around w/ it...the security log is full and I don't know if that triggers something in the laptop to lock out certain rights.....this sucks.....I'm meeting my old boss on wed but I'd like to not have to ask him for anything on this......I'd really lie to shove it in his corporate lifestyle fiddlesticking face and poop on it but this is my laptop and buying a new one now is al ittel stupid IMO.....
I don't care about loosing the data, I've backed up all my personal files and the rest can burn and rot in hell for all I care......anyone have a way to reformat this thing.....oh and I do not have a floppy drive.....so the Fdisk is out......
All the F12 key did was lock it up on the Toshiba splash screen.....
Esc just gives me another screen to choose from safe mode or Safe mode w/ networking, Last known good config
and default
I've started up in all those and tried hitting different F keys and I still can't see any BIOS options.....
If I log under the admin account, I cAN go into windows Expl. and left click the C drive and now I have the Format option available......but if I blow that away will it know to start up from the CD??...I'm not even sure it's not reading the CD drive first and they have locked out the rights to format it.....who is the super comp geek I can call and speak to...this is just frustrating me too much......Busted can you chime in on this as well and see if any of this makes more sense to you now...I wasn't in a very sober mood when we spoke on teh phone...

 

[cvec7]

I have one more idea that should fix it, but let's just not say it's easy.... Mainly, it would require you to completely (or almost completely) dismantle your laptop, find the CMOS battery (looks like a little watch battery) remove it for a few secconds, put it back in, but it all back together, and then the bios *should* be reset. You may have to mess around w/ the jumpers but I doubt it.
The other way, is there are bios "cracking" programs...but I imagine CD ROM needs to be set to boot first...

Anyway, I'd try to reset the CMOS physically as a last resort. I'd talk to beason some more about it, he's the man w/ computers.

http://www.dewassoc.com/support/bios/bios_password.htm

Also, you may want to ask around on www.notebookreview.com in the forums, there's a whole forum for toshiba.

 

[Plaidfish]

Yeah Bustedgears was telling me about that last night....I was really hoping to get someone who knows windows networks inside and out...I know I can modify the local machine but I'm not sure where to go....I'm not an IT guy but I do know some of this crap.....and I know I'm getting shafted here by my old supervisor somehow....and I'm really tryin gto be amicable and not go beating on someone I know I would just break his scrawny neck.....I do need to be civil so I can use them as a reference......
I guess I'll try looking on the forums you posted links to....thanks again....

 

[retarded pilot]

plaid,

if you restart the laptop with the xp disk in the drive will it boot to the cd?
(if it will boot to cd now formating the hard drive will not change the boot order that is in the bios)
if it does restart the laptop again and get to the options again (safe mode etc..)
and choose command prompt...it will bring up a little dos window with either a
a: or c: prompt and a flashing curser if it reads a: type cd c: then hit enter when at the c: prompt type format c: and hit enter

 

[mcvickj]

Windows and all of the security in place doesn't mean jack. There is no kind of security (that I know of) that could prevent you from getting access to the BIOS. The only type of BIOS security is a password. That will pop up when you try to load screen for the BIOS.

What model laptop do you have?