Toshiba L305-S5884 wireless card and hard drive issue on Vista

I bought a brand new Toshiba Satellite L305-S5884 (Vista SP1) from Fry's
electronics on Sunday (9/21/08)
1) I turned it on and sat it right next to my wireless router and it did not
see it. It saw both my neighbors routers, but not mine. My other laptop, a
Sony Vaio VGN-NR498 (two months old) saw the wireless router just fine. I
called Toshiba and some woman in the Phillipines told me to disable then
reenable it. That didn't work. Then she made me uninstall and reinstall it.
That worked. For a while. It saw it, connected, then stayed connected for
about 1/2 hour, then lost the connection. I reconnected and it stayed, then
lost it. I gave up and plugged the CAT 5 into the laptop. I turned the
router and laptop off, then router back on, then laptop back on and it
worked. I am on the road this week and I can see and connect to wireless
networks just fine. Is my wireless card bad?

2) I decided to do a CHKDSK and it froze at 55% of stage 5. I figured oh
well. I took the battery out, restarted and it started the CHKDSK and once
again, it stopped at the exact same cluster. I called Toshiba and they said
I probably have a bad hard drive. Is my hard drive bad?

"ca" <> wrote in message
news:16A2699D-667D-42CB-A4B4-...
>I bought a brand new Toshiba Satellite L305-S5884 (Vista SP1) from Fry's
> electronics on Sunday (9/21/08)
> 1) I turned it on and sat it right next to my wireless router and it did
> not
> see it. It saw both my neighbors routers, but not mine. My other laptop,
> a
> Sony Vaio VGN-NR498 (two months old) saw the wireless router just fine. I
> called Toshiba and some woman in the Phillipines told me to disable then
> reenable it. That didn't work. Then she made me uninstall and reinstall
> it.
> That worked. For a while. It saw it, connected, then stayed connected
> for
> about 1/2 hour, then lost the connection. I reconnected and it stayed,
> then
> lost it. I gave up and plugged the CAT 5 into the laptop. I turned the
> router and laptop off, then router back on, then laptop back on and it
> worked. I am on the road this week and I can see and connect to wireless
> networks just fine. Is my wireless card bad?
>
> 2) I decided to do a CHKDSK and it froze at 55% of stage 5. I figured oh
> well. I took the battery out, restarted and it started the CHKDSK and
> once
> again, it stopped at the exact same cluster. I called Toshiba and they
> said
> I probably have a bad hard drive. Is my hard drive bad?
>
Toshiba seem to think so.
Take it back to Frys.

bw..