cmos battery problem on toshiba portege r100

Discussion in 'Mobile Technology' started by simonpollo, May 25, 2009.

  1. simonpollo

    simonpollo Geek Trainee

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    Hi guys!

    I recently bought an old toshiba portege r100 notebook. It didn't come with any OS and it lacks an optical drive.

    As I first booted the follwing message appered:
    RTC battery is low or CMOS checksum is inconsistent, press F1 to reset date/time.

    The simple man that I am I pressed F1 and reset date and time. I realized while looking around that BIOS stated to NOT find a HDD.

    After saving I exited BIOS and rebooted. The following error message appears:

    IDE #0 ERROR
    Intel(R) Boot Agent FE v4.1.09
    Copyright (C) 1997-2002 Intel Cooperation
    PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
    PXE-M0f: Exiting Intel Boot Agent
    Insert System Disk in drive
    Press any key when ready...

    Since I plan to boot UBUNTU from a bootable USB stick I insert it after changing the boot sequence to FDD-HDD-CDROM-LAN because I hope that FDD refers to the USB (Flash?) drive. When I reboot the same error message appears again.

    So far to the original problem. I checked many forums and started to think that my CMOS battery might need to be charged. So I took the laptop apart and unplugged the CMOS battery cable for a few hours. Then I put everything back in place and allowed the laptop (I switched it ON but left the main battery in the laptop) to stay plugged in for 24h.

    Then the laptop told me again that: "RTC battery is low or CMOS checksum is inconsistent, press F1 to reset date/time."

    I pressed F1 and BIOS still couldn't find a HDD and still doesn't want to boot from my USB stick. I also tried to boot from an old external CD drive (with a PC card adapter) - which of course also failed.

    So finally my questions: Will buying a new CMOS battery solve my problem? Will BIOS then magically recognize the HDD? Is it true that every CMOS battery (at least in laptop computers) needs to be changed every 3-4 years? I once had a VAIO laptop which still worked fine after 5-6 years. DO you have any solutions that could help me solve my problem?

    Your help is highly appreciated!

    Thanks - Simon
     
  2. sabashuali

    sabashuali Ani Ma'amin

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    Personally, I would get a new battery and then once it is installed reset your BIOS.
    I am really not sure how this is done in laptops. Perhaps a manual from Toshiba will answer the question...? If the laptop can boot from a FDD ('F' in FDD normally stands for Floppy, not Flash) you can always flash the BIOS rather than resetting it...
     
  3. DanielGent

    DanielGent Geek Trainee

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    Sometimes you have to set it to boot from HDD and then look for another option called "boot priority" where you can put USB as the highest
     
  4. 0mega9401

    0mega9401 Geek Trainee

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    yeah sounds like all u have to do i s take the old one out look on the top of it take it to a radio shack or whatever and get the same type and ul be back
     

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