I have recently received a Toshiba laptop from a relative, unsure at this time exactly which model. I have been getting the PXE ROM media test failure and CMOS no longer sees the HDD. I got the system to boot up once for a couple of hours after the initial failures, but now its right back to the same issue. I am on a limited budget, so if any fix is going to cost close to the price of a new laptop I’d rather just buy a new one as this laptop is several years old already.
I have been considering ways to get the laptop back into service and I see 2 alternatives as of now.
1. I can buy a new hard drive and a Pata/Sata to USB adaptor and install the new drive and clone the old one, if possible.
2. I can buy a new hard drive and use my copy of Windows XP to try a clean install. My concern with this method would be that there could be some Toshiba specific drivers and applications that I might have a hard time of replacing if the old drive fails completely.
So my question basically is which of the two options should I go with? Or is there another option that would be better that I haven’t considered yet?
Thanks in advance for your assistance.
