Laptop CD ROM.

[docusk]

I have a friend's laptop which is a Toshiba Satellite Pro 430 cdt.
It had been working fine but he lent it to another friend (with friends like that, who needs.....) When it came back it didn't work. Win98 wouldn't start, kept saying non-system disk etc. I booted up with the system disk and managed to get into the HDD.Imagine my astonishment to find that the command and system32 folders were missing. Nada. HOW? 'cos the chap he lent it to can only switch it on. Just. Wouldn't have been able to delete anything even if he knew how to get into the root.
Now, I've fdisk ed it and reformatted it from the boot diskette and connected the CD-ROM with the Win 98 SE CD in but even after the thing starts with CD ROM suppoort, it still doesn't see the drive. The D: drive has just the diagnostic set in it; scandisk, MSCDEX, format and such are in there. The CD is plugged in, light is on and the drawer powers open.
Any thoughts Big j and co?
Docusk

[Midknyte]

toshibas are supposed to come with a recovery cd. did you try that first? it would have formatted and reinstalled windows with all the original software.

what boot disk are you using? toshiba should have had one for the cd drive if it's an external model.

[docusk]

Ah! The recovery CD is locked up in my pal's office and yes, it is an external CD. We'll have to wait till Monday now. I don't remember there being a separate CD CD if you follow me? I'll get him to look. I wish people would aall do things the same way. Heigh ho. Waiting time again.
Docusk

[Midknyte]

make sure the boot order is set to cdrom first also. i think you need to hold the esc key while turning on the power to get into the bios. I haven't worked on that model in a while.

some of the toshibas had a boot floppy and a cd. I think that one only had a cd, though.

[rmanet]

if the cd-rom driver isn't working you could try bootdisk.com and use another diskette or their image of a bootable cd