Hello GOG-ites.

I'm addressing the floor with a technical query I hope the collective hive mind of General Discussion can help me solve. I figure that the GoG community is particular good at this sort of thing.

I'm trying to repair the laptop of a good friend of mine. She has something of a checkered past with laptops and has pretty much destroyed 2.5 of them already (if you're interested in the .5, that was a dropped Dell which shorted out 3/4 of the USB ports, disabled the DVD drive, cracked the screen so only about a few inches is legible...but the HDMI out and 1 USB port still work, so she uses it with the aid of an LCD TV). This Toshiba Satellite is the latest victim, which took a tumble from the bed. Powering up we have the Toshiba splash screen, then after a moment goes to a black screen with some short text: "Checking Media--Failed. No bootable devices. Please restart machine." And we have the ominous clicking noise coming from the innards of the machine, the tell-tale sign of Hard Disk failure.

So, using a poached HD (which I can confirm works) from the other laptop she killed (also a Toshiba Satellite, with comparable stats) I've installed it in this machine. The OS on the original (dead) drive was Win8 (which she hated), the poached (working) drive had Win7 on it, though I'm planning on a format & reinstall (of course) of Windows 7 after retrieving any useful data from it, through Puppy Linux or other bootable recovery tools.

However, I cannot get into BIOS at all on the laptop. Hit the power up button, but no amount of F2, F8, F12, ESC, del, Ins hitting, with or without the FN key, makes any difference. No BIOS, no boot-order menu screen, no nothing. Holding down F2 or any of the other buttons before powering on doesn't make a difference. It just goes through the same Toshiba splash screen, "Check Media--Failed, no bootable devices" spiel each and every time. It doesn't matter if there's a bootable DVD in the tray or bootable USB/Pen-drive in the port while booting up either, which makes me think the Boot order is HD first. Finally, I tried removing the lithium CMOS battery in the laptop itself, in order to try to get a factory BIOS reset. I left it out for 15 minutes before snapping it back in. Didn't make any difference. Still can't get into the BIOS, although I haven't tried replacing the CMOS battery itself yet.

I'm really at a loss--this is the first time in 15 years of tinkering with PC computers I've been wholly locked out BIOS access the way I am here.

I've read some disturbing stuff online about Windows 8 changing the very nature of BIOS access these days, and you can only do it through menus on their OS (and Win8 was pre-installed on the old, dead drive the laptop shipped with). Something called UEFI vs. old-school Legacy BIOS, which is what I'm familiar with. Seems to be a heinous form of gatekeeping with a part of the hardware that has always been separate from software since there was such a thing as a BIOS thirty years ago.

Any ideas, insight, and most importantly solutions; very much requested here.

If you have the exact model number of the laptop that might help someone track down some information.

All of the laptops I've dealt with enter BIOS by pressing some key or another right after booting up, so no other ideas come to mind immediately. I'm not sure I've messed with a laptop with UEFI before, though.

Been w hile since I've built any computers so haven't kept up with the tech for a couple years, but skimming through the Wiki page on UEFI, I noted this under the Firmware Issues heading:



The increased prominence of UEFI firmware in devices has also led to a number of technical issues blamed on their respective implementations.

Following the release of Windows 8 in late-2012, it was discovered that certain Lenovo computer models with secure boot had firmware that was hard-coded to only allow executables named "Windows Boot Manager" or "Red Hat Enterprise Linux" to load, regardless of any other setting.Other issues were encountered by several Toshiba laptop models with secure boot that were missing certain certificates required for its proper operation.


I wonder if the bolded section is what's causing your issues.

The exact model number is: Satellite C855-S5355

Serial No. 9C245654Q Blood-chilling developments, if this is indeed the case. Firmware gatekeeping. Yikes. A way of keeping control out of a PC user's hands by software manufacturers and conglomerates. I really wish there was an easy way to return to CSM boot mode.

I wasn't aware [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poaching_(cooking)]poaching[/url] electronics was a good idea, just goes to show you there's always something to learn.

I have a Toshiba Satellite and had another one in the past, they're great value for money but man can they be buggy for no discernible reason. It sounds like you may have tried this, but just in case you haven't, instead of holding the F12 key trying tapping it or tapping it a few times then holding it instead of just holding it, that is what I have to do.

Here's something I found Googling that model number. It seems like according to that you may have to press F2 after it's powered on and while the TOSHIBA logo is displayed?

Judging by the third post on that topic, that appears to have worked for that person with the exact same model number, so if you can't access the BIOS (or 'UEFI Setup Menu', apparently) with that technique, it would seem something else is wrong with the laptop. I know that sometimes holding the FN key on laptops allows the F1-F12 keys to perform alternate functions, so you could see if the FN key is stuck and preventing the normal F2 operation.

And as NoNewTaleToTell says, you could try tapping F2 rapidly while the logo is onscreen. I usually end up doing that whenever trying to enter BIOS since sometimes it seems you have to hit the key at just the right moment for it to catch it.

Oh, and here's a page for a slightly different model number that seems like it may be relevant: it discusses downgrading to Windows 7 from Windows 8 and describes some issues accessing BIOS as a result. I don't know if that is the same procedure you tried earlier or not and I know that the guide earlier describes changing boot mode from UEFI to CSM Boot before downgrading to Windows 7, so I don't know if that has to be done before those steps work. It is bizarre to me that a laptop would be dependent on Windows 8 to access the BIOS...

ya this.. using usb keyboard might help.

Wow....that worked. The on-board keyboard was fucked. No problem getting into BIOS with an USB keyboard.

And yeah, went directly into "Security" tab in BIOS to disable secure boot (an oxymoron here in my circumstance if there ever was one) and turned off Secure Boot.

Then went into "Advanced," Sys Config, and changed boot mode from UEFI to CSM. That was my culprit.

After saving changes and restarting, I can access my burned media and pen-drives just fine with Linux, older versions of Windows, and anything else stand-alone bootable, just like I'm used to. That UEFI mode was locked into probably only accepting Windows 8 protocols or recovery discs.

The only problem is this damned keyboard. I wonder if I can transplant the other one from the dead Toshiba, if it's not a terrific surgical headache.

You may want to check the keyboard connector first. Usually laptop keyboards have a thin ribbon connector that snaps into the motherboard. If the jolt knocked it loose, the keyboard could still be fine after the connector is reseated properly. From personal experience even if it looks fine it's probably worth trying to take it out and reseat it in the slot securely. Not many moving parts in a keyboard to break, so that would be my first guess if none of the keys are working.

After opening up the innards of the machine, the keyboard connector was indeed knocked loose. However, after plugging it back into the port the keyboard was still unresponsive. So maybe the connecting port gave up the ghost, or something else, but it looks like this laptop will have a dead keyboard for the rest of its natural productive life.

Still, thanks for the help and suggestions.

Glad to be of service :-)