I found an ancient Toshiba NB500-113 and managed to revive it, except for one thing – the touchpad switch on the keyboard doesn't work and it needs an external mouse. After searching the web it appears there's a Windows utility that might fix it, but that's not an option for me. Does anyone know any workarounds? It would be a shame to put it in trash. #repair #reuse
@szescstopni in my experience they tend to reset to the "default" state (which should be trackpad on) if you open it up and disconnect the keyboard and trackpad, then reconnect. This some proper hassle though and YMMV
@jjcelery Thanks. That laptop survived a night outside in a heavy rain, so it'll probably survive frying. Ancient tech is so resilient.
@szescstopni good luck!
@szescstopni depends on the orientation inside. If I recall correctly you need to unplug the keyboard first and touchpad second on the toshibas, but it's all a question of access to the ports.
Reseating cables should be enough most of the time, worst case you'll need to power it on while open, with keyboard and trackpad detached, power down, plug them back in, reboot. But that's last case scenario, because you can accidentally static fry the laptop.