kiddrich

I had a similar problem with one of my computers....it is a Windows software glitch.....before you spend any money simply remove the battery and put it back in....it did the trick and may work for you.....some of my computers are very old running Vista....I have never replaced any batteries....good luck........

Yooper 2 Loc: Ironwood, MI

I too hate Win 8. I was able to find an Acer laptop with Win 7 still available. A very nice system.

waegwan Loc: Mae Won Li

Have you tried removing the battery and then plugging it in without the battery? If the battery is really dead or bad it will zap the power from the power cord and not let the computer boot up. If is is a bad battery it should power up and run fine without it just running on house current on the power cord. If it does not power up with the battery removed it is probably the power cord; does it have a green light on the power cord?

02Nomad Loc: Catonsville, MD

You should get a new battery so that you can power the laptop up. Once it starts, set the power level so that the computer is running on electricity only and not charging the battery, or, if possible, remove the battery. I have found that if you leave the battery in the computer while you are using it and leave the charging unit plugged in, the battery will eventually lose its ability to charge. You'll know this because the battery will last shorter and shorter amounts of time.

yds0066 Loc: Southwestern Illinois

Toshiba's have an issue with the power jack on the laptop itself. I have had 3 that stopped working. Plug in the power supply and move the plug around carefully on the laptop and observe if the power light on the computer comes on. You might be able to get it charged enough to get your photos off of it. I eventually took all 3 of mine apart and re-soldered the power plugs and they have been working ever since.

twillsol Loc: St. Louis, MO

It very well could be the battery needs to be replaced.

John N Loc: HP14 3QF Stokenchurch, UK

I've had a similar problem recently on our ancient desktop. We took out the hard drive and dropped it in a SATA dock borrowed from my neighbour, plugged this into a mains feed and a USB port and was able to copy any files we wanted across to a new (refurbished) PC.

So long as the HD is O.K. you should be O.K. Good Luck.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I have an old - Old! - Toshiba that no longer runs on the battery, but it works fine when plugged in. I'm not sure what that means, but I can use the computer with a dead battery. batteries aren't cheap, and buying one just to see if it works might not be the best way to go.

As others have said, just remove the hard drive and connect it to a PC with any one of the various cables and devices that are available.

http://www.amazon.com/Drive-Adapter-Converter-Optical-External/dp/B001OORMVQ

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2036718/why-its-a-good-idea-to-own-a-usb-to-sata-adapter.html

OlinBost Loc: Marietta, Ga.

Have someone take out the hard drive and with a USB adapter you can transfer your files to another computer.

mackolb

You're husband is a good candidate for Apple's One-to-One training program, available to those who purchase a Mac at an Apple Store for $99, offering one year of training, as many 30- and 60-minute sessions as he can book, one at a time, for a year!
The Apple Creative who works with him, can help transfer the contents of the drive in its own case during a session. Apple cannot, however, extract the PC drive from the PC or install it in a new case.
Cases are inexpensive and easy to setup, especially from macsales.com. One-to-one includes data transfer from a "working PC with one account." Unfortunately, this wouldn't work for your husband's PC.
However, as an Apple Creative, among the joys of my job are helping PC users discover the magic and getting them up to speed with work on their old content on their new Mac. I advise getting a USB3 case for 2.5" drive, insofar as all our Macs have USB3 and it's nice to see the data transfer happen quickly.
Just my 2¢ as a working professional shooter and trainer.

Picdude Loc: Ohio

Shellback is on the right track - this sounds more like a power supply problem rather than a battery problem. I have yet to see a laptop that would not run on the power supply alone with the battery removed, in fact, I do it all the time. The fact that it kept running after he received the charging message tells me that it was running on the battery and not receiving any voltage from the power supply.

I have 5 laptops in my house right now, all of various ages and manufacturers (Dell, Toshiba, Compaq, HP). The one common thing about all of them is they all have a 19 volt power supply. I wouldn't plug your MAC power supply into the Toshiba (you may not even be able to), but if you could find or borrow a power supply from another 'PC' laptop it would probably work to plug in and see if the old laptop turns on. If it does, you can then decide whether or not to tell your Husband.

RWCRNC Loc: Pennsylvania

That is where I would start too. Easy to replace. If not that, I recently had all of my pictures and data transferred from a dead computer to a new one by the Best Buy Geek Squad. It was $80 and they finished the same day.

Indi Loc: L. I., NY, Palm Beach Cty when it's cold.

I don't think that will work. As mentioned, it's in the charging system, not the battery. If it were the battery you'd be able to continue using it as long as it's plugged in.

A tip for anyone leaving their laptop on a charger. If you keep the charger plugged in all the time that's a good way to kill battery life.
I have mine on a mechanical light timer set for about one hour per day. Unless you use the laptop frequently, this will keep the battery 'topped' off instead of constantly charging, like a trickle charger. Saves electricity, too.

Kuzano

Almost everybody does what you described and shortens the life or kills the battery. Always running a laptop plugged into AC power (wall plug) is death for batteries. To a varying degree, this is true of all laptop battery technologies, ie NiCad, NiMh, Lithium Ion, all of them.

To properly condition a new battery and keep the battery life at maximum, one must run it to a dead state, or the warning to plug in at least a couple of time a month. If you buy a new laptop, that advice will be the same. Presuming that keeping any laptop plugged in all the time, will always keep it charged to full capacity is a big mistake.

They need to be conditioned by being used ONLY on the battery until they warn you to plug them in. The worst thing you can do on any laptop is constantly run it on wall (AC) power. Now it sounds like you not only have worn out the battery, but also the AC adapter unit (the brick).

Also, all laptops are subject most, because of always being plugged in, and jostled about, to the port in the laptop becoming loose, which is a more involved repair. I have a client who is on her third laptop because she won't even pull the plug when she puts the computer in her canvas shopping bag and hauls it around.

Toshiba laptops are some of the best, but there may now be other problems. It's likely fixable and for possibly very little money. You can get a new AC adaptor for any laptop, from numerous sellers on eBay, for under $20.

To get back to your original question, the hard drive is very likely still in usable or good condition, since you say the laptop does not show any signs of power. I've been working on computers and particularly laptops for over 20 years. I did on site work for DELL when they first came out with their Latitude series laptops.

Presuming your laptop hard drive is good, it takes about ten minutes to take it out of the Toshiba (hatch on the back) and mount it in a drive enclosure (Cost for the enclosure about $25) and turn it into an external drive that plugs into a USB port. Then hook it to a running computer and go into the drive like any other memory device and harvest your data and pics.

You need to make sure to get a drive enclosure that is the right technology, depending on how old the Toshiba happens to be. It would be either an ide, or a SATA drive, and the enclosure must be correct for that.

For any good tech, this is about a ten minute job, after getting the enclosure. Pull the hard drive to see what drive connection technology, get the enclosure, insert the drive, button it up, connect the cable to the drive and to the USB port on a running computer.

It will come up as a new additional drive, allowing you access to the contents.

Again, pretty much a no brainer for a good tech, should not cost much unless you have them harvest the data, but you can leave the data on the "new" external drive and just use it that way.

I would encourage copying the data to another two targets, as you obviously have not been backing up your data. (not insult, just fact not unlike 90% of the general computing public)

Not a big deal at all, should not be expensive. I would not encourage fixing the laptop, because any significant amount spent will not give you back a laptop worth the cost of repair.

However, I wouldn't give up on it without at least getting a compatible power adaptor, or having someone hook it up to one.

I'd almost bet that the Toshiba is just fine, because what you describe is an improperly used battery/computer (plugged into the wall all them time - really battery killer.)

Toshiba's are reliable in the extreme. All my clients use them on my advice and I rarely have to work on any Toshiba.

So you can pull the hard drive and turn it into an external drive with a simple drive enclosure. Or you can have somebody hook up a good compatible power adaptor, and I would bet the Toshiba lights right up and boots.

Don't spend big bucks on whatever you choose. Any laptop over 3 - 4 years old is not worth more, in most cases, than $100 to $200.

PS. That includes a MAC as well. Unless sold to another MAC person. MAC people are prone to spend too much on their computes anyway.

:XD: :XD:

FrumCA

Sounds like a bad battery. Buy a new battery pack for the laptop. I haven't read this entire thread so if this is a duplicate suggestion, my apologies.