CF cards are prone to bending pins while inserting

This is from the Maintenance Manual (which I attached below).

Many thanks for the pointers, double checked the connectors and the CF card and cleaned / reseated. Unfortunately, still the same thing.

I remembered that I have a parallel port diagnostics plug so I gave that a try. While it's waiting for the hard-disk it displays 58h, then when the "Insert system disk" message appears it shows FFh meaning "normal" according to the maintenance manual. This is strange since on the laptop screen it briefly flashes the "TIMER INTERRUPT ERROR" after waiting 2 minutes for the HDD to come up.

Does anyone know if the TIMER INTERRUPT ERROR is normal when running the Libretto without harddisk?

Probably not the cause for the issue at hand, but

> formatting and partitioning the CF under Virtual Box

...isn't the best idea with the Librettos, since their BIOS "steals" a bit of HDD space for its suspend-to-disk feature. If you still must do it this way, at least leave a bit of free space at the end of the disk.

Good point. So what I did to rule out issues with suspend to disk is that I cleared the CF card, popped it in and ran FDISK from a boot floppy. I get the message "no fixed disk present", also on the BIOS screen it says "No Drive" in the HDD section. The long wait and timer interrupt error is still there so I guess that there's a problem with the IDE interface itself preventing it from accessing the disk properly. I'll try to rework the solder joints on the mainboard once more to see if that helps.

Any shorts on your CF-IDE adapter?

The IDE-CF adapter is good since I can use it with a USB-IDE cable on my main computer. The more I think about it, it has to be sth. one mainboard that failed. Maybe the Win98 situation was just a coincidence.

Quick update: It‘s not (only) the IDE part, resoldered the connector but no change. A diagnostic program booted from floppy hangs where it tries to count CPU frequency. Did a bit more research on the timer error and it seems like this points to the „programmable interrupt timer“ 82c54 being faulty. On a XT/AT mainboard that would be a discrete IC and could replaced, while in the Libretto it‘s integrated into the large Toshiba custom chip. Could still be that it‘s sth else on the mainboard, maybe a clock signal for the timers not coming through.

Pull apart the Libretto and take a look around where the RTC battery connects. I've got a couple of librettos that are dead or in a really rough state because the NIMH RTC battery has leaked and damaged a couple of traces / components around them.
To take apart the libretto, undo all the screws and remove the battery. Remove the keyboard strip, remove the keyboard and undo all the screws up top, remove the LCD connector and memory expansion if fitted.
Pinch in the lower chassis 'arms' that extend out where the battery was fitted and that should unclip the top case from the magnesium lower case without damaging the rather fragile plastic clips. With that unclipped, rotate it around the back of the case since there are some more clips there and they can break with pressure applied in the wrong places.
Then you should have the two parts and can check the BIOS battery area, inspect for any areas that look rather green, especially solder VIAs that should be silver. The mainboard might be toast regardless, but take a look and see how it looks, since the RTC battery is the most likely thing that could damage one of these librettos, in my experience.

mrfusion92 wrote on 2023-04-19, 15:25:

This is from the Maintenance Manual (which I attached below).
Screenshot_5.png
Screenshot_4.png

Same issue with flex ribbon cables (3 of them) through a pencil size opening in one hinge on Nintendo 3DS and 3DS XL. I did one once recently to fix it by replacing the speaker/backlight/volume flex very fussy job and take awhile. LCD panel had to be taken out too, to have enough room to thread the ribbons through that opening.

I just keep telling guys I pass on them but one of them really wanted this fixed.

Cheers,

Thermalwrong wrote on 2023-04-22, 23:50:

Pull apart the Libretto and take a look around where the RTC battery connects. I've got a couple of librettos that are dead or in a really rough state because the NIMH RTC battery has leaked and damaged a couple of traces / components around them.

Thanks, yes I checked the rtc battery and the mainboard. The batt had leaked/corroded but it was enclosed in a plastic sleeve in addition to the shrinkwrap, so the white „crustration“ was contained in there. The motherboard is really clean and has no bad / corroded / burnt spots.
Tried to reflow the clock generator and the big Toshiba chip yesterday with hotair and flux, but no change. Also opened and reseated the connectors in the display area once more.

Starting to think that something in that Toshi chip has failed which means the unit is beyond repair. I guess I‘ll wait for one with screen damage to show up on ebay as a source for a mainboard replacement.

Got Libretto with booting problem, same as explained here

It tries to recover from hibernation, then locks up after the little graphic routine finishes (showed black screen), anything I can do to fix it?

I successfully fixed the problem by trying to replace the hard drive with the original Japanese model, which had saved hibernation data without crashing during a normal DOS game.

Replacing with a random hard drive, disconnecting the batteries for 24 hours, etc. did not help, there was no way to enter the BIOS or do anything. Very strange.

After replacing broken screen (which really took only 30 minutes), I have two completed 50CT Japanese and American Librettos.

MAZter wrote on 2025-02-06, 01:41:

I successfully fixed the problem by trying to replace the hard drive with the original Japanese model, which had saved hibernati […]
Show full quote

I successfully fixed the problem by trying to replace the hard drive with the original Japanese model, which had saved hibernation data without crashing during a normal DOS game.

Replacing with a random hard drive, disconnecting the batteries for 24 hours, etc. did not help, there was no way to enter the BIOS or do anything. Very strange.

After replacing broken screen (which really took only 30 minutes), I have two completed 50CT Japanese and American Librettos.

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Nicely done 😀 I wonder if that check for hibernation status is why a Libretto won't boot up if there's no hard drive installed? It does seem to be the only Toshiba from that era that I know of that has that hibernation facility

Where did you get the replacement screen? A donor or some other source?

Thermalwrong wrote on 2025-02-06, 02:13:

Where did you get the replacement screen? A donor or some other source?

Donor at Buyee, 5 months ago mistakenly listed in wrong category as dock station. Surprisingly it was broken Libretto with nice screen inside as bonus and dock station. For $20 + shipping only.

https://buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/w1147318948

You can still buy another one in next 2 hours, but for $67 + shipping:

https://buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/o1170988833