Re: Booting a Toshiba Laptop

>>> On Sep 5, 2024, at 19:24, David Christensen wrote:
>>>> On 9/5/29:1 is2, Doug Hardie wrote:
>>>> I am checking out a Toshiba
>>>> Satellite A655 laptop.  I have no problems booting a USB
>>>> memstick for Freebsd 14.1.  However, it appears the internal
>>>> drive has some issues.  It writes zeros just fine over the
>>>> entire disk.  It errors quickly when writing random data.  So
>>>> the question is if the problem is the drive or interface chips.
>>>> I tried to build an external drive with the memstick but it
>>>> will not boot however I format it.  The memstick is GPT with
>>>> both a MBR boot and UFE boot.  I have tried every combination I
>>>> can think of and none of them work on an external spinner.  How
>>>> should the drive be formatted to boot?
>>> 
>>> If it has the original 2.5" SATA HDD from ~2010, the drive could 
>>> be bad.  Do you have a bootable live USB stick with smartctl(8) 
>>> to test the internal drive?
>>> 
>>> It looks like the internal drive is externally accessible:
>>> 
>>> https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Toshiba+Satellite+A665-S5170+Hard+Drive+Replacement/74527
>>>
>>> I would put in a known good 2.5" SATA SSD, do a short SMART 
>>> test, and try installing FreeBSD.


> On Sep 5, 2024, at 20:16, Doug Hardie <bc979@lafn.org> wrote:
>> t thThanks for the information.  This is being checked out to see 
>> if it can be easily fixed for a friend’s grandson to use - games, 
>> nothing important.  I don’t have any SSDs lying around and we don’t
>> want to spend much on it.  It tends to run very hot so I suspect it
>> is not long for this world in any case.  I can probably find an old
>> spinner lying around I could try, but how should it be formatted?
>> MBR or GPT?
>> 
>> I suspect at this time, that it would be cheaper to replace with a 
>> cheap laptop.
>> 
>> -- Doug


On 9/5/24 22:13, Doug Hardie wrote:
> I found an old spinner that is SATA laptop type.  I had no idea what 
> was on it, so I put it into the Satellite.  It booted and had Freebsd
> 9.1.  My friend will have to find a Windows disk or flash drive to
> install since Freebsd does not support the Reaktek wireless card in
> it.
> 
> -- Doug


Perhaps there is a Linux distribution supports that Wi-Fi card.  I use 
Debian and have installed contrib and/or non-free packages for the Wi-Fi 
cards in my laptops:

firmware-iwlwifi
firmware-misc-nonfree


David