Cable Forum - Raised from the dead

I recently acquired a Toshiba Sattelite laptop that looks like Uri Gellar bent it with a truck...
It's got bits of tape holding the screen together, it's got a 10Gb hdd, the audio refuses to work in any way shape or form, the onboard mouse doesn't work, the battery (I suspect) is just about had it, the number '0' doesn't work, the USB sockets on the back are hit and miss as to whether they're going to work or not and I had to format the thing with XP just to get it to work again....
At some point, linux will probably be installed on it.

It's ugly as sin, it's noisy on boot (a single extra loud beep), the bios is password locked, but... for the job I wanted it for last Saturday, it did me proud...

Thing is, it's about 4-5 years old... needs a case mod like it really needs a case mod!!

Thing is.. can audio be restored? or does it seem like it's well past it as even in the device manager, it can't see the onboard soundchip at all....
It's currently running about 128mb of memory and it's little processor is about 600/700mhz intel celery...er.. celeron....

It's geared up for a wireless internet connection but we're keeping it well away from the net for now! (anything I've installed, I've downloaded onto pc and then transfered across using a memory stick...)

I know it needs codecs as I filmed a lot of stuff last weekend but couldn't see it played back (had to transfer half a gig of data the hard way (over msn of all places to one of the other PCs!) as the laptop doesn't have a cdrw!! it did well, and I'll give it some credit there, all tranfered in about 10 minutes:))... might install QTalternative and DIVX to see if that helps... although, quick and easier solutions might be considered :)

Many thanks again in advance for any help and no, I won't part with it until it really does die!!! :D

That means, it really has to not work at all before I'll part with it! How much are laptop batteries these days? (I'm a wildlife person thingy with a penchent for webcamming stuff from the kitchen and the laptop means I don't have to lug my heavy-a$$ system through the place and trip people up over cables and wires and the likes and yes, I would really love to be more portable and no, I can't afford a new laptop!!) :)