Who has a toshiba t135-s1309 laptop?

[AlexZaim]

Hello, i am thinking on buying that laptop and i read some reviews that it's bios doesn't have an option for booting from a usb device. And even an other review said that toshiba tech support affirmed that it can't boot from a usb device. But then later he stated that he actualy managed to boot suse from a flash drive.

So the q is: Does anyone else tried to boot linux with this laptop? Please write about your experience with it!!

Sucess was able to boot T135-S1309 from USB flash drive but not external USB CDR

01-13-2010 05:30 PM

I am partially correct. I am unable to boot for an external connected USB DVD/CDROM drive. The system does not see it during boot up nor in the boot menu by pressing F12. In the bios there is no provision for choosing an external DVD/CDROM drive.

HOWEVER the system will see a bootable USB Flash drive. It needs to be installed in the computers USB port, any one of there 3 at boot time. When you press F12 during the initial boot process the USB flash drive does show up. I was able to boot openSuSE Linux 11.2 this way today and installed it. Now the little Toshiba dual boots using GRUB so I can choose either Windows 7 32 bit or OpenSuSE 11.2 64 bit OS on boot up and both run pretty fast. I am happier than I was when I wrote the previous messages.

Apparently Toshiba has taken the liberty of hiding within the bios the various bootable accessories. So one will not know until you connect it, then try the F12 boot menu at first power / boot up. Their description of a previous bios update Bios 1.06
# Updated the boot menu: 1. Hid the USB empty slot in the setup menu boot page and pop-up boot menu. 2. Hid the CDROM empty slot in the setup menu boot page and pop-up boot menu. 3. Adjusted the highlight bar UI dynamically for the setup engine. 4. Updated the USB Memory type string definition and algorithm.

There is a restore provision pressing the number 0 during boot up, there is no choice for an external drive so far as I followed that process which was not beyond the first screen.

I'd think an external DVD/CDROM would be the way to boot an .iso but it worked fine from the USB flash drive. I used a windows program to make the bootable .iso. Not sure if it will do anything beyond making a bootable Linux USB flash drive but its worth a try Google for Win32DiskImager worked great for me and was fast doing a Live CD image. Inputting *.iso even when .iso was not a choice worked as it found the .iso I was wanting to install on the USB drive.

link to the forum that has the upper quote.

[EDIT]
It can boot from USB wihtout a problem!
Linux related solutions for this laptop may be found here!

[dgtl_rebellion]

I just bought a t135 series laptop and it boots from usb just fine. Just make sure the usb drive is plugged in okay and then hit f12 while it's booting up (during the bios screen that says toshiba). you should see 3 options (Hard Drive, Network, USB) and you can select whichever one you want.

[AlexZaim]

Thank you very much! This is a relief for me.

[Speshio]

dgtl_rebellion

Thanks for your input. I've just purchased this nifty little machine from Best Buy, and I see that the BIOS has been upgraded at least twice.

Can you tell us what BIOS version your machine is using?

I ask because the revision history shows that certain USB booting options were hidden between the initial release BIOS (1.30) and version 1.60. I suspect perhaps you've purchased a machine with the original release BIOS of 1.30 before certain USB booting options were hidden. Current version is 1.90.

My new machine has BIOS version V1.70 as reported by the Phoenix SecureCore Setup Utility
F12 at Toshiba screen presents choice to boot from hd or lan, or enter set-up. In the Boot section of Set-up, choices are:
HDD/SSD
FDD
LAN

In other words, my Toshiba Satellite T135-S1309 running BIOS v1.70 has no listed option for booting from any USB device.

I don't consider this issue solved for all BIOS iterations of this machine. Thanks everyone for your input on this very interesting issue.

UPDATE: link to Toshiba support on this issue: http://laptopforums.toshiba.com/t5/G...p/81265#M17614

[AlexZaim]

Have you tried to follow exact instrucitons? Is your usb drive connected to the pc before you start it,then hit f12?

I'm asking this because my desktop acts in this similar way: it dowsn't show boot option for usb if you don't install/plug in the device first, then turn on the machine.
But it's a desktop... and has nothing toshiba in it,after all. But just curious.

update: btw, i fount this link that says "T100/T115/T135 series laptop owners and/or developers interested in getting it to work 100% under Linux." . Which means people actually manage to install linux on them.

[Speshio]

Thanks Alex,

I haven't got that far yet.

First question is to decide whether or not to purchase external CD/DVD drive because of this issue. The guy from the Toshiba forums was able to get his to boot from a USB stick, but not from an external USB CD/DVD drive.

BIOS version 1.30 is still available on the Toshiba site, so it might be possible to downgrade to v1.30 and be able to boot from an external CD/DVD.

I hope we can hear back from dgtl_rebellion to learn which BIOS version he has that allowed him to boot from external CD/DVD drive.

steve

[AlexZaim]

No i didn't mean to install it via CD. I was talking about the flash drive)
did you:
1. Connected the usb stick to the computer.
2. Turned it on.
3. Pressed f12.
4. And ,optionaly, have you used these instructions:1. Hid the USB empty slot in the setup menu boot page and pop-up boot menu. 2. Hid the CDROM empty slot in the setup menu boot page and pop-up boot menu. 3. Adjusted the highlight bar UI dynamically for the setup engine. 4. Updated the USB Memory type string definition and algorithm.

Some times the usb stick isn't visible if you turn the comp on, then insert the drive.

[Speshio]

Thanks again, Alex, I understand the points you are making, but as I say, I haven't gotten that far yet because I have no readily available bootable usb stick at hand at the moment.

I don't doubt gfiber's method with a bootable usb stick, but it is the CD/DVD boot issue which interests me most right now. Of course, we really need to know gfiber's BIOS version too, and I have left a question for him on that issue at the Toshiba forum.

Your #4 is not instructions, but rather the version comments of the programmer who upgraded the BIOS -- what changes he made. And that's the point. Apparently, the ability for the little Toshiba to boot from CD/DVD was removed from (or hidden in) the BIOS from v1.60 onward.

We can verify this if dgtl_rebellion returns to tell us his BIOS version, which I suspect is v1.30, the initial release BIOS, but v1.40 and/or v1.50 might well be out there too, so I'd very much like to get this info from dgtl_rebellion, as well as where and when he purchased the t135-s1309.

Cheers

[AlexZaim]

Oh, i see. I'm sorry for missunderstanding you! I thought you wanted to boot from a usb stick too. Why do you want to boot from a CD drive, anyway? I understood you don't even have it right know,yes? Please correct me if i'm wrong.

I appreciate your comments.

edit: oh, please include a link to the 1.30 version of bios you said to have found.

[Speshio]

Alex

I love this little machine - it's truly beautiful, but I think it's pretty important to be able to boot from CD/DVD, not only for testing live cd and/or installing ubuntu, but also in the case where the operating system must be re-installed, or you want to install a bigger HDD.

Here's current direct link to Toshiba's d/l page for the t135-s1309.

http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/t...ily=1073768663

There are currently three BIOS versions available for the T135-S1309: v1.30, v1.60, and v1.90.

As I mentioned, my t135-s1309 came with BIOS v1.70

I doubt this link above will last. It's no doubt better to simply head over to support.toshiba.com, click on download, and use the interface to select the Satellite T135-S1309 download page.

steve