My dad recently messed up his old Satellite M45 work notebook so I took it in to discover that the DVD drive will only read CD's (and yes it is definitely a DVD drive), and that the wireless doesn't work. The specs are: Pentium M 740 @ 1.73GHz 512MB DDR 100 GB HDD Built in card reader Considering how it is pretty much useless as a laptop now I was considering using it as an htpc of sorts, but the 100gb hard drive kind of limits that. Can anyone think of something else it would be useful for, besides a paper weight?
Use the recovery partition to start fresh from the original factory install and see if it fixes itself. At this point it could use some sprucing up anyway, and doing things that way will tell you whether you had massive hardware problems or massive software problems. If it works, great, use it as a regular ol' laptop. If not, you could try replacing components yourself (ODD and wireless card are among the parts of a laptop you can actually replace, but you could replace the hard drive with a 320GB or 500GB one if you pursued the HTPC route), but I'd either put the line-in function to use as an additional monitor or sell it on eBay if I were you. That's just me, though. - Diosjenin -
Well, laptop DVD drives tend to be replaceable. But the uses for it are endless. As far as the wireless, does it have a PCMCIA slot?
As far as other uses, Picture Frame, additional monitor, you could construct a really small case for it, etc.
I'm pretty sure it doesn't have a recovery partition. As for connectivity it has one PMCIA, three USB, one Svideo, one VGA, an ethernet, a phone line, and what looks like a little tiny USB. I think I may just replace the DVD drive and install a new hard drive then hook it up to my TV so I don't have a cable running from my TV to my desktop.
Unless Toshiba just didn't have them back whenever that was made (and the vast majority of manufacturers did) or it was intentionally erased and extended over, it's still there. It's usually hidden from sight within the OS - you either have to boot from it directly or boot into some kind of OEM system recovery options. - Diosjenin -
There was no partition on the drive but I did find the recovery CD and I'm attempting that right now. We'll see how that goes.
Another option you have it to use it as a download machine, something that's always on but low power. Attach some USB HDDs to it or get a PCMCIA eSATA card and plug some drives in that way
