toshiba satellite m105 factory reset

jpickel

Estimable
Mar 18, 2015
5
0
4,510
Hello, I am trying to factory reset an old Toshiba laptop model 105-3041. I have the restore disc but the DVD player does not work. I have tried the 0 trick but am not having any luck. Is there any other way? Thank you!
 
The 0 trick?

If the laptop doesn't have a bult-in factory recovery partition on the storage drive that you can boot from (or if it's not working), you can connect an external USB CD/DVD drive and use that to launch your factory recovery from your discs. Or you can move what you have on disc(s) over to the USB drive, but that might take quite a bit of work.
 

jpickel

Estimable
Mar 18, 2015
5
0
4,510
Thanks for your response! I tried hooking up an external DVD and a USB drive and starting the recovery from there. But, after I get past the confirmation screen I get a message that the boot sequence file experienced a problem and needed to shut down. So, at this point I am assuming there is no way to reformat or reset this computer to factory setttings. I guess it is just too old but it was worth a try. Thank you!
 

hackintosh777

Estimable
Jul 30, 2014
93
0
4,610
Oh, you can reformat and wipe it. Just use a Linux distro, one of your choice, and burn it to a USB. Then wipe the disk and install it. But if you want Windows...That's another problem. What OS do you currently have on it?
 

hackintosh777

Estimable
Jul 30, 2014
93
0
4,610


xp is probably not the problem since recovery is seperate from the main OS. But I can recommend a good distro if you give me the specs of the laptop.
 

You're welcome! That sounds like a problem with the recovery software, not so much your laptop. Sorry to hear that. :(

Ubuntu is good. I've no experience with Manjaro. Linux Mint is another good distro, as it's user friendly and lightweight (which might be better on your laptop given its specs).

However you go about it, good luck!
 

hackintosh777

Estimable
Jul 30, 2014
93
0
4,610


Linux Mint is typically a bit heavy (at least the Cinnamon, KDE, and MATE versions, and I didn't like the look of the Xfce version). Manjaro is very light; you can read my review of it here: http://linuxdesktopreviews.blogspot.com/2015/03/manjaro-0812.html
 

hackintosh777

Estimable
Jul 30, 2014
93
0
4,610


Just installed it on an old machine yesterday, runs great but only thing is that the web browser (Firefox) is a bit slow but that happens on almost all old machines.