MAZter wrote on 2025-02-27, 01:29:

Ohh, did not now it was not latest. […]
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Ohh, did not now it was not latest.

I "Extracted" just running exe in real DOS on laptop. Setup automatically wrote files to the floppy and compared CRC.

Downloaded it here using VPN (you know, file not tested by me and this is not official Toshiba website, at least I trust it more than DriverGuide.com).

Image contain weird file called "EA DATA. SF", I can't read it by some reason:

The attachment extracted.jpg is no longer available

Thank you 🙏
Ok so I can’t extract it because I don’t have any floppy. I will try with it and if it change nothing I’m done with this computer… someone said I could also use a cf card to ide adapter with a cf card to quick the boot but since the low appear before the boot of the hdd2 it will probably change nothing…

I flashed the bios with the last version (6.80), it changed nothing 😁 :'-( but I had to test.

At least laptop works, slow boot is not the end of the world...

MAZter wrote on 2025-02-27, 12:22:

At least laptop works, slow boot is not the end of the world...

Yea I use it often actually, it’s not optimal but it works. I am done with tuning it (or maybe with parts from an other one some day) but I’m not done using it

The fact that it eventually boots means it hasn't crashed, and since you use it often, it's unlikely that
memory/HD is bad ... it's likely "spinning" somewhere waiting for something, and eventually timing out
and proceeding...

Do you know what it's doing/looking at when it's "stuck" - do you happen to have a scope?
You could look at various selects and see what it's accessing when it's spinning - hard drive
(maybe a bad sector etc.) - Network port, maybe waiting in case there's a CD coming ready,
maybe waiting on USB in case there's a bootable device? - there's all kinds of reasons a system
might "spin" on startup. (and just because you might not have a certain device that the laptop
should have -- doesn't mean it won't wait/timeout on it -- I've seen many laptops where the
hardware it shipped with is assumed to be there)

Does you BIOS have a key you can hit at startup to allow booting from different devices?
These are often checked for before waiting for a possible boot device to come ready, and
usually won't wait on anything but the device you select... might help figure out what it's
waiting on!

Dave ::: https://dunfield.themindfactory.com ::: "Daves Old Computers"->Personal

The waiting is always after the memory check but there is no errors related to it, it seems like going fine. I posted a link to a video of the process at my first post. At this time there were a password after some time but it didn’t change something, the rest is the same. At this moment all is really quiet like if it was doing… nothing… and there is nothing on the screen… for the key I don’t know, I tried a lot of F keys when the attempts to access bios (which are sometimes successful for bios now) but not other keys

So I got my cf to ide adaptor today, and copied the disk image on the CF card. The boot is not faster it's same, but it's more quiet and saving and navigation are faster so it was not useless

Maz Hoot wrote on 2025-02-27, 22:37:

The waiting is always after the memory check but there is no errors related to it ...

Are you still booting from secondary HDD?
I'm wondering it there's not some early-on code in the BIOS that's waiting for the primary HDD
to spin up before proceeding - wouldn't surprise me at all if this were happening before things
like (see which drive we are configured to boot from)

I know you don't have the carrier, but do you have suitable cables so that you
could even temporarily plug the HDD in as the primary?

Dave ::: https://dunfield.themindfactory.com ::: "Daves Old Computers"->Personal

DaveDDS wrote on 2025-03-07, 15:12:

Are you still booting from secondary HDD? I'm wondering it there's not some early-on code in the BIOS that's waiting for the pri […]
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Maz Hoot wrote on 2025-02-27, 22:37:

The waiting is always after the memory check but there is no errors related to it ...

Are you still booting from secondary HDD?
I'm wondering it there's not some early-on code in the BIOS that's waiting for the primary HDD
to spin up before proceeding - wouldn't surprise me at all if this were happening before things
like (see which drive we are configured to boot from)

I know you don't have the carrier, but do you have suitable cables so that you
could even temporarily plug the HDD in as the primary?

Dave ::: https://dunfield.themindfactory.com ::: "Daves Old Computers"->Personal

I suspect that's exactly what is happening.

DaveDDS wrote on 2025-03-07, 15:12:

Are you still booting from secondary HDD? I'm wondering it there's not some early-on code in the BIOS that's waiting for the pri […]
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Maz Hoot wrote on 2025-02-27, 22:37:

The waiting is always after the memory check but there is no errors related to it ...

Are you still booting from secondary HDD?
I'm wondering it there's not some early-on code in the BIOS that's waiting for the primary HDD
to spin up before proceeding - wouldn't surprise me at all if this were happening before things
like (see which drive we are configured to boot from)

I know you don't have the carrier, but do you have suitable cables so that you
could even temporarily plug the HDD in as the primary?

Dave ::: https://dunfield.themindfactory.com ::: "Daves Old Computers"->Personal

Yes I boot from secondary hdd because I have no other choice. I don’t have the adaptor to hdd1 port so cf to ide with cf card is on hdd2 port and boot priority on bios is on hdd2.
No I don’t have suitable cable for this port. According to people here, it’s proprietary and can’t be found right ?

Maz Hoot wrote on 2025-03-08, 13:27:

Yes I boot from secondary hdd because I have no other choice. I don’t have the adaptor to hdd1 port so cf to ide with cf card is on hdd2 port and boot priority on bios is on hdd2.
No I don’t have suitable cable for this port. According to people here, it’s proprietary and can’t be found right ?

I think what is happening is that as part of it's basic hardware tests, the BIOS is doing something
like:
- Test BIOS checksum (most do to detect damaged flash)
- Testing RAM (so you don't try to load/rum complex stuff that will crash)
- Wait for primary hard drive ready (everyone has a primary hard drive and you wouldn't
want to boot from something else that might access it before it's ready)

These are "power on" tests, and I think the last one is timing out waiting for the drive to
"spin up", and since flash/RAM are good the laptop proceeds to more complex boot stuff like figuring out where it should boot from.

I suspect the only way to "fix" this is to either find/make a cable to connect the HDD as primary
- or - [find a]/[modify the] BIOS to not do the "wait for ready".

Dave ::: https://dunfield.themindfactory.com ::: "Daves Old Computers"->Personal

DaveDDS wrote on 2025-03-08, 15:41:

I think what is happening is that as part of it's basic hardware tests, the BIOS is doing something like: - Test BIOS checksum […]
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Maz Hoot wrote on 2025-03-08, 13:27:

Yes I boot from secondary hdd because I have no other choice. I don’t have the adaptor to hdd1 port so cf to ide with cf card is on hdd2 port and boot priority on bios is on hdd2.
No I don’t have suitable cable for this port. According to people here, it’s proprietary and can’t be found right ?

I think what is happening is that as part of it's basic hardware tests, the BIOS is doing something
like:
- Test BIOS checksum (most do to detect damaged flash)
- Testing RAM (so you don't try to load/rum complex stuff that will crash)
- Wait for primary hard drive ready (everyone has a primary hard drive and you wouldn't
want to boot from something else that might access it before it's ready)

These are "power on" tests, and I think the last one is timing out waiting for the drive to
"spin up", and since flash/RAM are good the laptop proceeds to more complex boot stuff like figuring out where it should boot from.

I suspect the only way to "fix" this is to either find/make a cable to connect the HDD as primary
- or - [find a]/[modify the] BIOS to not do the "wait for ready".

Dave ::: https://dunfield.themindfactory.com ::: "Daves Old Computers"->Personal

"- Wait for primary hard drive ready (everyone has a primary hard drive and you wouldn't
want to boot from something else that might access it before it's ready)"

You are probably right but I still doesn't understand why there is an option to boot from hdd2 (yea this option is weird, I totally agree but it's here so it can't be ignored). Why let people boot from hdd2 if everyone si suppose to have an hdd1 connected and if you can't boot without waiting enormous time without an hdd1 ? It's a contradiction... like "hey guys, you can boot from hdd2, but you will regreat it !! haha"

"I suspect the only way to "fix" this is to either find/make a cable to connect the HDD as primary
- or - [find a]/[modify the] BIOS to not do the "wait for ready"."

I don't have enough knowledge to do that sadly...

I am also thinking that there is a distinction between hdd2 and cd-rom in bios, but they are at the same connector. If you use HDD2 then the CD-ROM drive is removed, there is no other way...

Maz Hoot wrote on 2025-03-08, 16:19:

"- Wait for primary hard drive ready (everyone has a primary hard drive and you wouldn't
want to boot from something else that might access it before it's ready)"

You are probably right but I still doesn't understand why there is an option to boot from hdd2 (yea this option is weird, I totally agree but it's here so it can't be ignored). Why let people boot from hdd2 if everyone si suppose to have an hdd1 connected and if you can't boot without waiting enormous time without an hdd1 ? It's a contradiction... like "hey guys, you can boot from hdd2, but you will regreat it !! haha"

Couple of simple rules to keep in mine then trying to "figure out" this industry.

- Not everyone thinks like you, or always logically
- Things that may cause problems for <0.1% users are rarely considered

I'm sure the manufacturer thought that >99.9% users would be booting from HD (or
CD to restore OS) both of which want hard drive ready.

The option is there for the very few users who might want to "stuff in another drive and boot
from it" from time-to-time - most likely service people. And almost all of them would want to
access the primary hard drive (or at least not remove it)

From manufacturers viewpoint - if hard drive or caddy fails, we'd be happy to sell them a new one.

Manufacturers almost never consider how their products might be used after they are no longer
producing them ... I very much doubt that anyone ever considered how to make the system usable
booting from HD2 without HD1 (and to be fair - in the <0.0000001% cases where it might have been
needed when the product was in production - it does work!)

"I suspect the only way to "fix" this is to either find/make a cable to connect the HDD as primary
- or - [find a]/[modify the] BIOS to not do the "wait for ready"."

I don't have enough knowledge to do that sadly...

If you are lucky, maybe someone else has come across this - and made a BIOS patch.
Of maybe there's an alternate compatible BIOS that allows complete disable of
primary HD access....

If it were my machine, and it was driving me nuts and no other solution could be found,
I'd probably spend a few days with a debugger/disassembler and see if I could:
a) figure out how to patch it to bypass the wait.
b) figure out if/how the BIOS was checking itself so that value could be patched.

But even then, I'd probably not do it on the original BIOS chip - I'd want to be able to
put it back if the patch failed to the point where you couldn't reflash.

Dave ::: https://dunfield.themindfactory.com ::: "Daves Old Computers"->Personal

If you do find an option to replace the primary drive disk/caddy cable... please report back; there are a number of us with Toshiba 5xx laptops who are in the same position where the machine cannot be used due to lost/damaged/missing cables for the primary disk drive.

I will change the CMOS battery because it make the (very low) boot is happening 2 times or even 3 times sometimes (bad cmos press F1 for check system, then it reboot). It didn't do that before I remove the CMOS (but there were already "bad CMOS" message and there is green corrosion on the old one so it's probably better to change it).

The one you mentioned @MAZter is 20Mah (https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/235466875898) , and the original one is 35Mah ( https://parts-hq.com/shop/p000230840-ni-mh-ba … n-870477?page=9 )

Does this one will do the job ? It's 40mAh so more close to the original one :
https://www.amazon.fr/vhbw-Remplacement ... 9&sr=8-153

I can put it in the modem space as someone suggested here

Maz Hoot wrote on 2025-03-12, 08:49:

Does this one will do the job ? It's 40mAh so more close to the original one :

Any of these will works, more mAh preferable, I would buy 35mAh.

DaveDDS wrote on 2025-03-08, 17:46:

If you are lucky, maybe someone else has come across this - and made a BIOS patch.
Of maybe there's an alternate compatible BIOS that allows complete disable of
primary HD access....

As I wrote earlier, I have a Toshiba 510CDT without a primary disk installed and booting from the secondary optional HDD configured in the BIOS makes the boot speed the same, there is no delay waiting for the primary disk to be present when setting up booting from the second. So slow boot problem causes something else, memory or motherboard issue.

MAZter wrote on 2025-03-12, 12:23:

Any of these will works, more mAh preferable, I would buy 35mAh. […]
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Maz Hoot wrote on 2025-03-12, 08:49:

Does this one will do the job ? It's 40mAh so more close to the original one :

Any of these will works, more mAh preferable, I would buy 35mAh.

DaveDDS wrote on 2025-03-08, 17:46:

If you are lucky, maybe someone else has come across this - and made a BIOS patch.
Of maybe there's an alternate compatible BIOS that allows complete disable of
primary HD access....

As I wrote earlier, I have a Toshiba 510CDT without a primary disk installed and booting from the secondary optional HDD configured in the BIOS makes the boot speed the same, there is no delay waiting for the primary disk to be present when setting up booting from the second. So slow boot problem causes something else, memory or motherboard issue.

Thank you to reposting that, I remembered someone said something like that but I read too faster and couldn’t find it again so I thought I dreamed… the problem is the same when booting without the additionnal memory card so if it’s memory it’s the internal one

So I got my new CMOS battery, I tried to solder it to the old connector wires. It was very hard, these wires are weird, solder don’t stuck on it. Tinning don’t work, normally I can do it with most wires without a problem but not these ones, and they are dark and crumble easily. I finally did it but the connector don’t want to fit completly back in the location even when pressing very hard with a thin flat screwdriver so it doesn’t work…

Do you think it’s possible to remove the connector on the pcb and solder the wire directly on the pcb ? I don't really see how to remove it other than cutting it off completely little by little with wire cutters.

EDIT : finally I could solder it on the pcb without cuting the plastic. But there is still the « bad CMOS » message…