Please can someone help me. The Portege 2010 power light/battery/and green start button light up, but no beeps and the hard drive light dosn't come on.
Thanks in advance

Hello madgooner and welcome to the PC-Guide. :D

Download a copy of my diagnostic flowcharts from here
www.erniek.eclipse.co.uk/downloads/sylvanderdiags.zip
and print them to leaf through.
Begin on the START UP chart.
This will probably take you to the NO POST chart.
Since you don't hear the short single beep that indicates successful completion of the POST, then the video card will not have been enabled and there will be no display.
I assume you normally see lights flashing on your drives [including the HDD], before the beep, as the BIOS polls the hardware.
I wonder if the HDD has gone faulty?
Try disconnecting the HDD to see if POST will then complete.
If that doesn't work then follow the instructions on the NO POST chart to disconnect all peripherals and system adaptor cards except keyboard and monitor. You could leave off testing the PSU voltages until after you've tried that.

Thanks for the reply but there is no flashing from the hard drive light. The only things lighting up is power switch, battery, and power cable. So there is nothing booting in.

It appears you have NO POST.
Probably an item of hardware has gone faulty.
What indicator lights does this notebook have?
Before the beep: what was normally displayed on these lights and what is displayed now? Any change?
How old is the notebook and is it out of its warranty period?
Do you have the ability and experience to go inside it and attempt a fix?

Is this your model?
http://www.laptopshop.co.uk/TOSHIBA-portege_2010-laptop-1-nd2.htm
Do you have a link to a better webpage?

Got the right model mate. No post and the three lights power switch/power supply/battery lights on. Opened harddrive cover took cable off when machine had these lights on and repluged it in- result was that the hard drive could be heard spinning round.

So follow the instructions in the NO POST chart.
It's not essential to run diagnostics from a floppy; you can just see if connecting an item of hardware produces a failure to POST.

TESTING ATX POWER VOLTAGES

See this http://www.ochardware.com/articles/psuvolt/psuvolt2.html
And this http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=152496#post152496

Black = ground
Red = +5 volts
White = -5 volts
Yellow = +12 volts
Blue = -12 volts
Orange = +3.3 volts (?)
Green = power on

Turn the power on. The fans should at least come on so that you know you have power.

Turn on the voltmeter and set it to measure DC voltage. Start with an IDE power connector that is not used. Place the black lead of the voltmeter in the hole of the connector that has a black wire (ground). Connect the red lead of the voltmeter first to the yellow hole and then to the red hole. The voltmeter should read +12v and +5v respectively.

The other voltages may usually be measured at the motherboard power connector by simply sliding the red multimeter test probe down the hole where each colour wire goes (with the black probe connected to any black wire as before). Really you only need to check the orange wire for 3.3 volts at this connector. If +12, +5, and +3.3 volts are all okay, then your power supply is probably fine.

Unfortunately, a low voltage measured in this way may mean a bad PSU or that some other component (motherboard, etc.) has a short and is pulling the voltage down. Therefore, the main value of measuring voltages is to eliminate the PSU as a source of the problem (if it has normal voltages).