I have a Toshiba Tecra 8000 laptop. The laptop won't boot up at all, all there is is a black screen. The power lights are on and the hard drive makes noise, but it doesn't sound like it is booting windows. I tried to hook up an external monitor and switch to it but that didn't work. I don't even see the bios loading, could this be the cmos battery? Any suggestions? Please help.

I had a similar problem with mine. I had to clear the cmos by finding the battery and disconnecting it. GOod Luck

I found two very small ni-mh batteries, I disconnected them and reconnected them and tried to reboot but the problem is still here. Could this happen if the cmos battery is dead?

On most Toshibas, the battery will not cause a laptop to not boot.... it will simply tell you that the battery is dead. (Or invalid checksum). But I don't work on many Tecras; just satilites and porteges. This could be a number of things. I'm sure your not a techncian so I will suggest quick items: You can try to swap the ram. This will definitely cause a system not to POST (just fixed an IBM laptop this way). If the cd-rom/floppy/hard drive are removeable... then remove them. Traditionally, these won't cause a system to not POST. It's worth a shot! Feel free to email with any other questions. I can look up the service manual if needed.

Thanks Daniel, but when I was talking about ni-mh batteries I meant the cmos connected to the motherboard, not the rechargeable battery for the laptop, the Tecra 8000 has two cmos batteries. I actually ended up ordering two more cmos batteries but that didn't help. I should have been clearer. It is my experience that when the RAM is bad the laptop/PC would beep. The POST is loaded as part of the BIOS which is in the CMOS battery, even if the RAM is bad it should still POST, that is when it checks for RAM. Anyhow, I did change the RAM and that didn't do anything. I think the user spilled something, but isn't fessing up to it. Thanks for your help though, you are right I am not a tech I am a systems administrator.