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Oh, that model (P505) probably has a hard drive that has 512k byte sectors. Try to get either an SSD, or an older style hard drive that has 512k byte sectors. "Advanced format" drives are troublesome on the older Toshibas. Over on the Toshiba troubleshooting forum, contributor Jerry_Lippy has written several good threads on "advanced format drives" vs. these machines, and he also listed some WD models that are older format. I think you can use an advanced format drive but must load the Intel Storage Driver or whatever it's called. I think acts as a translator, and thus you wind up with slower access times as a result. (If I remember correctly)
The hard drives on the shelves at stores are advanced format now. I don't know how available the 512k sector drives are now. It wasn't too difficult to find one 6 months ago.
It would also be worthwhile for you to search your exact model number at the Toshiba forum and see if there are any other complaints. Some of those machines, especially with the AMD CPUs, have run hot for years and the solder joints on motherboards are going bad. Depending on which joint(s) are affected, the symptoms vary. I don't know what happens with P505D. But lots of people with L505D series models said sound crackled and quit, then USB ports stopped working. Others had video probs because it was bad solder joints that hold the video module on. If you have a model that's known for motherboard failures like that, it's not worth paying someone to fix it. Dump it for parts on ebay.
Intel gives it a better chance of survival, hehe. Maybe it is just the hard drive or a corrupted operating system. Honestly that Win Vista machine I had, I ran for 3 years before I hosed it and did a complete restore to factory out of box. The difference was a dramatic improvement. And then I sold it, and got a used Intel machine. ;-D
I was recommended to a guy in town. Good rep. Free estimate and $40 per hour.
It's always hard to turn your computer over to someone.
First I'll try the "safe-mode". Thanks everyone.
Free estimates and $40/hr. sounds fair. Let us know what he says. BTW, and for what it's worth, I think you have a heat/fan problem. Your tech may find something as simple as vents plugged up.
Im Scoot from Australia .. i have a Toshy ..on w7 and w8 ... you really do need to clean the system .. + burn those disc's if you can ... I gave my old Toshy (vista) to a friend which is good working order .. but after 5 months of her having it , its shutting down and etc .. not good ..
I had a thought b4 i read everything on here .. what is your ram on ?? like is it like 2gb ram , 4gb of ram ..?? with windows 7 and 8 you do need 4 gb ram to for it to fly .. i bought a Emachine (w7) on 2 gb ram ..it crashed constantly , i placed another 4gb ram on top and zooooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmm , no crashing ... its been a good machine ..
if you have any questions pls PM me
cheers Scootz
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